There's No Such Thing as Enlightened Retirement

Jack Kornfield on what happens when Zen masters go home to their spouse and kids.

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After a Peace Corps stint in Thailand in 1967, Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India. Upon his return to the United States, he earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and became a psychotherapist. In 1975, he co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass., a center that has widely influenced the practice of vipassana meditation in the West. In 1986, he helped found Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, Calif., where he continues to teach. He lives nearby with his family.

His books include "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom," "Teachings of the Buddha," and the spiritual classic "A Path With Heart." This month, Bantam Books published his latest, "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path." Kornfield spoke with Beliefnet's Buddhism producer, Mary Talbot.

In "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry," you interview scores of serious contemplative practitioners--Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Sufis--who have had conflicts integrating a spiritual path with the challenges of daily living. Is this a problem particular to Western practitioners?

This book is really an attempt to give voice to the spiritual experiences of committed Westerners during the last 20 or 30 or even 40 years. What people have found is that there are wonderful awakenings, mystical experiences, and profound understandings that occur in the course of practice, but these need to be integrated into everyday life or they fade. That integration is how the spiritual path matures for individuals. The generation that came to Eastern spirituality in the 1960s and 1970s was very idealistic. We thought that

satori

, or enlightenment, would change everything. But there's no enlightened retirement. After the ecstasy, there's still your family. You still have to do the laundry.

So what's the solution?

Well, the wonderfully good news is that the heart of Eastern practices are designed to reflect our fundamental goodness. Our true nature wants to shine forth, and these spiritual forms remind us of that truth.

But Westerners, more than most Asians, are prone to feelings of fear, self-hatred, and unworthiness. In this book, I talk about contemplative spiritual practice that's based on the great heart of compassion and mercy. The practice invites the heart to open, just as water, fertilizer, and careful tending invite the flowering of plants in garden. The bottom line, though, is that there is no spiritual bypass: You can't make an end-run around old emotional wounds or your history or family.

Is emotional work, then, the key to integrating spiritual awakening with regular life?

In can be included in your spiritual life and combined with the cultivation of compassion and wakefulness. But part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

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