Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
Name	Ram Dass
Birth date	April 06, 1931
Birth place	Boston, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Spiritual teacher
Religion	Jewish (until 1967), Hindu (since 1967) }}

Ram Dass, (born Richard Alpert on April 6, 1931), is an American contemporary spiritual teacher, and author of the seminal 1971 book ''Be Here Now.'' He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s. He is also known for his travels to India and his relationship with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continues to teach currently via his website.

Biography

Youth and education

Alpert was born to a Jewish family in Newton, Massachusetts. His father, George Alpert, was a lawyer in the Boston area and president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, as well as one of the founders of Brandeis University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He started out his high school career at the Williston Northampton School graduating in 1948 as a part of the Cum Laude Association. He then went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University, master's degree from Wesleyan University and doctorate (in psychology) from Stanford University.

Harvard professorship and the Leary-Alpert research

After returning from a visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, Alpert accepted a permanent position at Harvard, where he worked with the Social Relations Department, the Psychology Department, the Graduate School of Education, and the Health Service, where he was a therapist. However, perhaps most notable was the work he was doing with his close friend and associate, Timothy Leary. Leary and Alpert were formally dismissed from the university in 1963. According to Harvard President Nathan M. Pusey, Leary was dismissed for leaving Cambridge and his classes without permission or notice, and Alpert for allegedly giving psilocybin to an undergraduate.

Spiritual search and name change

In 1967 Alpert traveled to India, where he traveled with the American spiritual seeker yogi Bhagavan Das, and ultimately met the man who would become his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, whom Alpert called "Maharaj-ji". It was Maharaj-ji who gave him the name "Ram Dass", which means "servant of God", referring to the incarnation of God as Ram or Lord Rama. Alpert also corresponded with the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba and mentioned Baba in several of his books.

Later life

In February 1997, Ram Dass suffered a stroke which left him with expressive aphasia. However, he interprets his stroke as an act of grace. He no longer travels, but continues to teach via the Internet through live webcasts and at retreats in Hawaii. When asked if he could sum up his life's message he replied, "I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people... To me, that's what the emerging game is all about." Ram Dass was awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in August 1991.

Ram Dass is a vegetarian and has also acknowledged his bisexuality. In the 1990s, he became more forthcoming about sexuality while avoiding labels and asserting that bisexuality "isn't gay, and it's not not-gay, and it's not anything—it's just awareness." At 78, Ram Dass learned both that he had fathered a son when he was a 24-year-old at Stanford, and that he was now a grandfather.

Foundations

The Love Serve Remember Foundation was organized to preserve and continue the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass, and to work with Ram Dass on his writings and other future plans. The Hanuman Foundation is a non-profit educational and service organization founded by Ram Dass in 1974, focused on the spiritual well-being of society through education, media and community service programs. The Seva Foundation is an international health organization founded by Ram Dass in 1978 along with public health leader Larry Brilliant and humanitarian activist Wavy Gravy.

Works

Books

''Identification and Child Rearing'' (with R. Sears and L. Rau) (1962) Stanford University Press

''The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead'' (with Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner) (1964) ISBN 0-8065-1652-6

''LSD'' (with Sidney Cohen) (1966) ISBN 0-453-00120-3

''Remember, Be Here Now'' (1971) ISBN 0-517-54305-2

''Doing Your Own Being'' (1973)

''The Only Dance There Is'' (1974) ISBN 0-385-08413-7

''Grist for the Mill'' (with Steven Levine) (1977) ISBN 0-89087-499-9

''Journey of Awakening: A Meditator's Guidebook'' (1978) ISBN 0-553-28572-6

''Miracle of Love: Stories about Neem Karoli Baba'' (1978) ISBN 0-525-47611-3

''How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service'' (with Paul Gorman) (1985) ISBN 0-394-72947-1

''Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service'' (with Mirabai Bush) (1991) ISBN 0-517-57635-X

''Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying'' (2000) ISBN 1-57322-871-0

''Paths to God: Living The Bhagavad Gita'' (2004) ISBN 1-4000-5403-6

''Be Love Now (with Rameshwar Das)'' (2010) ISBN 1-8460-4291-7

Recordings

''The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead'' (with Richard Alpert & Ralph Metzner) (1966) (reissued on CD in 2003 by Folkways)

''Here We All Are'', a 3-LP set recorded live in Vancouver, BC in the summer of 1969.

''Love Serve Remember'' (1973), a six-album set of teachings, data, and spiritual songs (ZBS Foundation) (released in MP3 format, 2008)

Films

''Ram Dass Fierce Grace'', a 2001 biographical documentary about Ram Dass directed by Micky Lemle.

References

External links

. This site also includes information about the "Love Serve Remember Foundation".

Ram Dass Tapes Library

The Living/Dying Project (an outgrowth of the Hanuman foundation, which was created by Ram Dass)

Category:1931 births Category:Living people Category:American Hindus Category:American metaphysics writers Category:American psychologists Category:American spiritual writers Category:Bisexual writers Category:Converts to Hinduism Category:Dharmic writers Category:Harvard University faculty Category:Jewish American writers Category:People from Boston, Massachusetts Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:Psychedelic researchers Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Tufts University alumni Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty Category:Wesleyan University alumni

de:Ram Dass es:Ram Dass fr:Richard Alpert it:Richard Alpert nl:Richard Alpert pl:Ram Dass ru:Рам Дасс simple:Ram Dass fi:Ram Dass tr:Ram Dass

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
region	Western Philosophy
Era	20th century philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
image	Mckenna1.jpg
name	Terence Kemp McKenna
Birth date	November 16, 1946
Birth place	Paonia, Colorado, United States
Death date	April 03, 2000
Death place	San Rafael, California, United States
School tradition	Metaphysics, phenomenology|
Main interests	shamanism, ethnobotany, metaphysics, psychedelic drugs, futurism, primitivism, environmentalism, consciousness, phenomenology, historical revisionism, evolution, ontology, Mind at Large, virtual reality, dominator culture, criticizing science, the Logos
Influences	psychedelic drugs, Marshall McLuhan, Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Aldous Huxley, I Ching, William Blake, Riane Eisler, James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov, Heraclitus
Influenced	Rupert Sheldrake, Robert Anton Wilson, Ralph Abraham, RU Sirius, Cliff Pickover, Timothy Leary
Notable ideas	Novelty Theory, The "Stoned Ape" Theory of Human Evolution, Machine elves }}

Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an Irish-American researcher, philosopher, speaker, spiritual teacher and writer on many subjects; such as human consciousness, psychedelic drugs, the evolution of civilizations, the origin and the end of the universe, cybernetics, alchemy, and extraterrestrial beings.

Biography

Early life

Terence McKenna grew up in Paonia, Colorado. He was introduced to geology through his uncle and developed a hobby of solitary fossil hunting in the arroyos near his home. From this he developed a deep artistic and scientific appreciation of nature.

At age 16, Terence moved to Los Altos, California to live with family friends for a year. He finished high school in Lancaster, CA. In 1963, McKenna was introduced to the literary world of psychedelics through ''The Doors of Perception'' and ''Heaven and Hell'' by Aldous Huxley and certain issues of ''The Village Voice'' that talked about psychedelics.

Terence claimed that one of his early psychedelic experiences with morning glory seeds showed him "that there was something there worth pursuing." In an audio interview Terence Mckenna claims to have started smoking cannabis regularly during the summer following his 17th birthday.

Studying and traveling

In 1965, Terence enrolled in U.C. Berkeley to study Art History. In 1967, while in college, he got involved with shamanism after being lead there by studying Tibetan religions That year, which he called his "opium and kabbala phase," he also traveled to Jerusalem, where he met Kathleen Harrison, who would later become his wife.

In 1969, Terence traveled to Nepal lead by his "interest in Tibetan painting and hallucinogenic shamanism." During his time there, he studied the Tibetan language and worked as a hashish smuggler, until "one of his Bombay-to-Aspen shipments fell into the hands of U. S. Customs." He was forced to move to avoid capture by Interpol. He wandered through Southeast Asia viewing ruins, collected butterflies in Indonesia, and worked as an English teacher in Tokyo. He then went back to Berkeley to continue studying biology, which he called "his first love."

After he completed part of his studies and his mother's death from cancer in 1971, Terence, his brother Dennis, and three friends traveled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé, a plant preparation containing DMT. Instead of oo-koo-hé they found various forms of ayahuasca, or "yagé," and gigantic psilocybe cubensis which became the new focus of the expedition. In La Chorrera, at the urging of his brother, he was the subject of a psychedelic experiment which he claimed put him in contact with Logos: an informative, divine voice he believed was universal to visionary religious experience. The voice's revelations and his brother's simultaneous peculiar experience prompted him to explore the structure of an early form of the I Ching, which led to his "Novelty Theory." During their stay in the Amazon, Terence also got romantically involved with his translator, Ev.

In 1972, Terence returned to Berkeley to finish his studies. There he decided to switch majors to a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Conservation, in a then-new experimental section of the same university called the Tussman Experimental College. During his studies, he would also develop techniques for cultivating psilocybin mushrooms with Dennis.

In 1975, he parted with his girlfriend Ev, when she left him for one of Terence's friends from Berkeley. Their parting left him "tormented with migraines and living alone." He graduated in 1975. That same year, he began a relationship with a friend he met in Jerusalem, Kathleen.

Soon after graduating, Terence and Dennis published a book inspired by their Amazon experiences, ''The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens and the I Ching.'' Terence also began lecturing. The brothers' experiences in the Amazon would later play a major role in Terence's book ''True Hallucinations'', published in 1993. In 1976, the brothers published what they had learned about the cultivation of mushrooms in a book entitled ''Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide'' under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric.

Later life

In the early 1980s, McKenna began to speak publicly on the topic of psychedelic drugs, lecturing extensively and conducting weekend workshops. Though associated with the New Age and human potential movements, McKenna himself had little patience for New Age sensibilities. He repeatedly stressed the importance and primacy of felt experience, as opposed to dogma. Timothy Leary once introduced him as "one of the five or six most important people on the planet." }}He soon became a fixture of popular counterculture. His growing popularity culminated in the early to mid-1990s with the publication of several books: ''True Hallucinations'', relating the tale of his 1971 La Chorrera experience; ''Food of the Gods''; and ''The Archaic Revival''. He became a popular personality in the psychedelic rave/dance scene of the early 1990s, with frequent spoken word performances at raves and contributions to psychedelic and goa trance albums by The Shamen, Spacetime Continuum, Alien Project, Capsula, Entheogenic, Zuvuya, Shpongle, and Shakti Twins. His speeches were, and are, sampled by many. In 1994 he appeared as a speaker at the Starwood Festival, documented in the book ''Tripping'' by Charles Hayes. His lectures were produced on both cassette tape and CD.

McKenna was a colleague of chaos mathematician Ralph Abraham, and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, creator of the theory of "morphogenetic fields", not to be confused with the mainstream usage of the same term. He conducted several public debates known as ''trialogues'' with them from the late 1980s until his death. Books containing transcriptions of some of these events were published. He was also a friend and associate of Ralph Metzner, Nicole Maxwell, and Riane Eisler, participating in joint workshops and symposia with them. He was a personal friend of Tom Robbins, and influenced the thought of many scientists, writers, artists, and entertainers. His influences include comedian Bill Hicks, whose routines about psychedelic drugs drew heavily from McKenna's works. He is also the inspiration for the Twin Peaks character Dr. Jacoby.

In addition to psychedelic drugs, McKenna spoke on the subjects of virtual reality, which he saw as a way to artistically communicate the experience of psychedelics; techno-paganism; artificial intelligence; evolution; extraterrestrials; and aesthetic theory, specifically about art/visual experience as ''information'' representing the significance of hallucinatory visions experienced under the influence of psychedelics.

In 1985, McKenna co-founded Botanical Dimensions with his then-wife Kathleen, a nonprofit ethnobotanical preserve in Hawaii, where he lived for many years before he died. In 1997 he and Kathleen divorced. Before moving to Hawaii permanently, McKenna split his time between Hawaii and Occidental, located in the redwood-studded hills of Sonoma County, California.

Death

A longtime sufferer of migraines, in mid-1999 McKenna returned to his home on the big island of Hawaii after a long lecturing tour. He began to suffer from increasingly painful headaches. This culminated in three brain seizures in one night, which he claimed were the most powerful psychedelic experiences he had ever known. Upon his emergency trip to the hospital on Oahu, Terence was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. For the next several months he underwent various treatments, including experimental gamma knife radiation treatment. According to Wired magazine, McKenna was worried that his tumour was caused by his 35-years of smoking cannabis; though his doctors assured him there was no causal relation.

In late 1999, Erik Davis conducted what would be the last interview of McKenna. During the interview McKenna also talked about the announcement of his death:

Terence died on April 3, 2000, at the age of 53, with his loved ones at his bedside. He is survived by his brother Dennis, his son Finn, and his daughter Klea.

The library fire

On February 7, 2007, McKenna's library of rare books and personal notes was destroyed in a fire which burned offices belonging to Big Sur's Esalen Institute storing the collection. An index maintained by his brother Dennis survives, though little else.

Ideas

Terence McKenna advocated the exploration of altered states of mind via the ingestion of naturally occurring psychedelic substances. For example, and in particular, as facilitated by the ingestion of high doses of psychedelic mushrooms, and DMT, which he believed was the apotheosis of the psychedelic experience. He spoke of the "jeweled, self-dribbling basketballs" or "self-transforming machine elves" that one encounters in that state.

Although he avoided giving his allegiance to any one interpretation (part of his rejection of monotheism), he was open to the idea of psychedelics as being "trans-dimensional travel"; literally, enabling an individual to encounter what could be ancestors, or spirits of earth. He remained opposed to most forms of organized religion or guru-based forms of spiritual awakening.

Either philosophically or religiously, he expressed admiration for Marshall McLuhan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gnostic Christianity, Alfred North Whitehead and Alchemy. McKenna always regarded the Greek philosopher Heraclitus as his favorite philosopher.

He also expressed admiration for the works of James Joyce (calling ''Finnegans Wake'' "the quintessential work of art, or at least work of literature of the 20th century") and Vladimir Nabokov: McKenna once said that he would have become a Nabokov lecturer if he had never encountered psychedelics.

The "Stoned Ape" Theory of Human Evolution

In his book ''Food of the Gods'', McKenna proposed that the transformation from humans' early ancestors ''Homo erectus'' to the species ''Homo sapiens'' mainly had to do with the addition of the mushroom ''Psilocybe cubensis'' in its diet - an event which according to his theory took place in about 100,000 BC (this is when he believed that the species diverged from the Homo genus). He based his theory on the main effects, or alleged effects, produced by the mushroom. One of the effects that comes about from the ingestion of low doses, which agrees with one of scientist Roland Fischer's findings from the late 60s-early 70s, is it significantly improves the visual acuity of humans - so theoretically, of other human-like mammals too. According to McKenna, this effect would have definitely prove to be of evolutionary advantage to humans' omnivorous hunter-gatherer ancestors that would have stumbled upon it "accidentally"; as it would make it easier for them to hunt.

In higher doses, McKenna claims, the mushroom acts as a sexual stimulator, which would make it even more beneficial evolutionarily, as it would result in more offspring. At even higher doses, the mushroom would have acted to "dissolve boundaries", which would have promoted community-bonding and group sexual activities-that would result in a mixing of genes and therefore greater genetic diversity. Generally McKenna believed that the periodic ingestion of the mushroom would have acted to dissolve the ego in humans before it ever got the chance to grow in destructive proportions. In this context he likened the ego to a cancerous tumor that can grow uncontrollable and become destructive to its host. In his own words:

The mushroom, according to McKenna, had also given humans their first truly religious experiences (which, as he believed, were the basis for the foundation of all subsequent religions to date). Another factor that McKenna talked about was the mushroom's potency to promote linguistic thinking. This would have promoted vocalisation, which in turn would have acted in cleansing the brain (based on a scientific theory that vibrations from speaking cause the precipitation of impurities from the brain to the cerebrospinal fluid), which would further mutate the brain. All these factors according to McKenna were the most important factors that promoted evolution towards the ''Homo sapiens'' species. After this transformation took place, the species would have begun moving out of Africa to populate the rest of the planet Later on, this theory by McKenna was given the name "The 'Stoned Ape' Theory of Human Evolution".

Bibliography

1975 - ''The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching'' (with Dennis McKenna) (Seabury; 1st Ed) ISBN 0-8164-9249-2.

1976 - ''The Invisible Landscape'' (with Dennis McKenna, and Quinn Taylor) (Scribner) ISBN 0-8264-0122-8

1976 - ''Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide'' (with Dennis McKenna: credited under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric) (2nd edition 1986) (And/Or Press) ISBN 0-915904-13-6

1992 - ''Psilocybin - Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide'' (with Dennis McKenna: (credited under the pseudonyms OT Oss and ON Oeric) (Quick American Publishing Company; Revised edition) ISBN 0-932551-06-8

1992 - ''The Archaic Revival'' (HarperSanFrancisco; 1st edition) ISBN 0-06-250613-7

1992 - ''Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution'' (Bantam) ISBN 0-553-37130-4

1992 - ''Synesthesia'' (with Timothy C. Ely) (Granary Books 1st Ed) ISBN 1-887123-04-0

1992 - ''Trialogues at the Edge of the West: Chaos, Creativity, and the Resacralization of the World'' (with Ralph H. Abraham, Rupert Sheldrake and Jean Houston) (Bear & Company Publishing 1st Ed) ISBN 0-939680-97-1

1993 - ''True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise'' (HarperSanFrancisco 1st Ed) ISBN 0-06-250545-9

1994 - ''The Invisible Landscape'' (HarperSanFrancisco; Reprint edition) ISBN 0-06-250635-8

1998 - ''True Hallucinations & the Archaic Revival: Tales and Speculations About the Mysteries of the Psychedelic Experience'' (Fine Communications/MJF Books) (Hardbound) ISBN 1-56731-289-6

1998 - ''The Evolutionary Mind : Trialogues at the Edge of the Unthinkable'' (with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph H. Abraham) (Trialogue Press; 1st Ed) ISBN 0-942344-13-8

1999 - ''Food of the Gods: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution'' (Rider & Co; New edition) ISBN 0-7126-7038-6

1999 - ''Robert Venosa: Illuminatus'' (with Robert Venosa, Ernst Fuchs, H. R. Giger, and Mati Klarwein) (Craftsman House) ISBN 90-5703-272-4

2001 - ''Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness'' (with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph H. Abraham) (Park Street Press; revised ed) ISBN 0-89281-977-4 (Revised edition of Trialogues at the Edge of the West)

2005 - ''The Evolutionary Mind: Trialogues on Science, Spirit & Psychedelics'' (Monkfish Book Publishing; Revised Ed) ISBN 0-9749359-7-2

Spoken word

''History Ends In Green: Gaia, Psychedelics and the Archaic Revival'', 6 audiocassette set, Mystic Fire audio, 1993, ISBN 1-56176-907-x (recorded at the Esalen Institute, 1989)

''TechnoPagans at the End of History'' (transcription of rap with Mark Pesce from 1998)

''Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines'' (1999) 90 minutes video

''Alien Dreamtime'' with Spacetime Continuum & Stephen Kent (Magic Carpet Media) (CD) video

''Conversations on the Edge of Magic'' (1994) (CD & Cassette) ACE

''Rap-Dancing Into the Third Millennium'' (1994) (Cassette) (Re-issued on CD as ''The Quintessential Hallucinogen'') ACE

''Packing For the Long Strange Trip'' (1994) (Cassette) ACE

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell, broadcast on May 22, 1997, Five hour interview covering various topics

''Global Perspectives and Psychedelic Poetics'' (1994) (Cassette) Sound Horizons Audio-Video, Inc.

''The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge'' (1992) (Cassette) Sounds True

Discography

''Re : Evolution'' with The Shamen (1992)

''Alien Dreamtime'' with Spacetime Continuum & Stephen Kent (Magic Carpet Media) (DVD)

2009 - ''Cognition Factor'' (2009)

See also

Ethnomycology

Exopheromone

List of notable brain tumor patients

Machine Elf

References

External links

Terence McKenna Land at Deoxy.org

Terence McKenna at Levity.com

Erowid's Terence McKenna Vault

Botanical Dimensions

Rotten.com bio

FloatingWorldWeb's McKenna Pages

Terence McKenna's Last Trip 2000 Wired Magazine article by Erik Davis

"Mind contagions" (2001) at disinfo.com

Psychedelics, Evolution & Fun 2008 essay by Patrick Lundborg

Machine Elves 101, or Why Terence McKenna Matters - Reallity Sandwish by Daniel Moler

Transcription from 1991 interview regarding cannabis

Audio and video resources

Terence McKenna's interview Conducted by John Hazard in October 1998

Audio and video archive at Deoxy.org

Terence McKenna media archive at EROCx1.com

FutureHi.net MP3 Downloads - Terence McKenna, Albert Hoffman, Robert Anton Wilson, and more

McKenna at the 1999 Entheobotany Seminar - Audio Podcast

Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines - Video samples from the 1999 DVD

McKenna Video on FloatingWorldWeb - McKenna Video Portal

Over 100 podcasts of Terence McKenna talks - Audio Podcast

Transcripts

MindofMcKenna - McKenna Audio Excerpts, Transcriptions and Quotes

Category:2012 theorists Category:Deaths from brain cancer Category:Cancer deaths in Hawaii Category:Psychedelic drug advocates Category:Psychedelic researchers Category:American cannabis activists Category:American book and manuscript collectors Category:Contemporary philosophers Category:Counterculture festivals activists Category:1946 births Category:2000 deaths Category:American anarchists Category:Philosophers of science Category:Western mystics Category:Ethnobotanists Category:Religious skeptics

bs:Terrence McKenna cs:Terence McKenna de:Terence McKenna es:Terence McKenna fr:Terence McKenna (écrivain) hr:Terrence McKenna it:Terence McKenna nl:Terence McKenna ja:テレンス・マッケナ pl:Terence McKenna pt:Terence McKenna ru:Маккенна, Теренс Кемп sk:Terence McKenna fi:Terence McKenna sv:Terence McKenna tr:Terence McKenna

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
background	#FFD068 | color black
name	Jack Kornfield
birth date	1945
birth place	United States
school	Theravada
title	Vipassana instructor
website	http://spiritrock.org/ }}

Jack Kornfield (born 1945) is a teacher in the vipassana movement of American Theravada Buddhism. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, including as a student of the Thai monk Ajahn Chah. He has taught meditation worldwide since around 1974.

Biography

After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1967, Kornfield joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to the Public Health Service in northeast Thailand, which is home to several Buddhist forest monasteries. Here he met Ajahn Chah, who became his teacher. Upon returning to the United States in 1972, Kornfield co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, with Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein.

Kornfield holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Saybrook Institute. He is also a founding teacher of the Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California, where he currently lives.

Teachings

Kornfield's work has focused on integrating Eastern spiritual teachings in an accessible way for Western students.

Books published

His books include

Kornfield lectures were featured by Joe Frank on his radio series "The Other Side."

References

Fronsdal,Gil (1998). Insight Meditation in the United States: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, in Also available on-line at: http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/articles/InsightintheUS.html.

External links

Jack Kornfield audio from the DIY Dharma website

The Eightfold Path for the Householder from the Urban Dharma website

Category:American Jews Category:Theravada Buddhism writers Category:Jewish American writers Category:Modern Buddhist writers Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:American Theravada Buddhists Category:American spiritual writers Category:Theravada Buddhist teachers Category:Dartmouth College alumni

de:Jack Kornfield fr:Jack Kornfield nl:Jack Kornfield sv:Jack Kornfield