Kornfield - A Path with Heart: a Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

In beginning this book I have emphasized my own personal journey, because the greatest lesson I have learned is that the universal must be wedded to the personal to be fulfilled in our spiritual life.

I n the summer of 1972 I returned to the home of my parents in Washington, D.C., head shaved and robed as a Buddhist monk, after my first five-year study in Asia. No Theravada Buddhist monasteries had been established in America at that time, but I wanted to see how it would be to live as a monk in America, even if for only a short while. After several weeks with my parents, I decided to visit my twin brother and his wife on Long Island. With my robes and bowl I boarded a train en route from Washington to New Yorks Grand Central Station, carrying a ticket my mother had purchased for meas a renunciate, I was not using or handling money myself.

I arrived that afternoon and began to walk up Fifth Avenue to meet my sister-in-law. I was still very calm after so many years of practice. I walked as if I were meditating, letting shops such as Tiffanys and the crowds of passersby be the same in my mind as the wind and the trees of my forest monastery. I was to meet my sister-in-law in front of Elizabeth Ardens. She had been given a birthday certificate for a full day of care in that establishment, including facial, hairdo, massage, manicure, and more. I arrived at Elizabeth Ardens at four oclock as promised, but she did not appear. After some period of waiting, I went inside. May I help you? exclaimed the shocked receptionist as I entered. Yes, Im looking for Tori Kornfield. Oh, she replied. Shes not finished yet. Theres a waiting lounge on the fourth floor. So I took the elevator to the fourth floor. Coming out of the door, I met the waiting lounge receptionist, who also inquired in a slightly incredulous tone, May I help you? I told her I was waiting for my sister-in-law and was instructed to take a seat.

I sat on a comfortable couch, and after waiting a few minutes, I decided to cross my legs, close my eyes, and meditate. I was a monk after all, and what else was there to do? After ten minutes I began to hear laughter and noises. I continued to meditate, but finally I heard a group of voices and a loud exclamation of Is he for real? from the hall across the room, which caused me to open my eyes. I saw eight or ten women dressed in Elizabeth Arden nighties (the gowns given them for the day) staring at me. Many had their hair in rollers or in other multiple fishing-reel-shaped contraptions. Several had what looked like green avocado smeared on their faces. Others were covered with mud. I looked back at them and wondered what realm I had been born into and heard myself say, Are they for real?

From that moment, it became clear that I would have to find a way to reconcile the ancient and wonderful teachings I had received at the Buddhist monastery with the ways of our modern world. Over the years, this reconciliation has become one of the most interesting and compelling inquiries for me and for many other people seeking to live a genuine spiritual life as we enter the twenty-first century. Most Americans do not wish to live as traditional priests or monks or nuns, yet many of us wish to bring a genuine spiritual practice to life in our own world. This book will speak to this possibility.

My own spiritual life was triggered at age fourteen by the gift of T. Lobsang Rampas book The Third Eye, a semifictional account of mystical adventures in Tibet. It was exciting and thought-provoking and offered a world to escape to that seemed far better than the one I inhabited. I grew up on the East Coast in a scientific and intellectual household. My father was a biophysicist who developed artificial hearts and artificial lungs, worked in space medicine for the space program, and taught in medical schools. I had a good education and went to an Ivy League college. I was surrounded by many bright and creative people. In spite of their success and their intellectual attainments, however, many of them were unhappy. It became clear to me that intelligence and worldly position had little to do with happiness or healthy human relationships. This was most painfully evident in my own family. Even in my loneliness and confusion I knew that I would have to seek happiness somewhere else. So I turned to the East.