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Aug 2023
1h 2m

Ep. 200 – Hunger: The Illusion of Incomp...

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About this episode

Getting vulnerable about the hungers which afflict our lives, Jack helps us into the nirvana beyond the illusion of incompleteness.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/heartwisdom

“In Sanskrit or Pali the word is ‘Trishna,’ which means thirst, desire, wanting. It’s exaggeration, or the realm that it manifests in in the greatest way, is called ‘The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts.’ Hungry Ghosts are pictured as these beings who have huge stomaches and tiny little mouths, so that it’s never possible to get enough in there to ease that hunger.” – Jack Kornfield

In this episode, Jack vulnerably navigates:

  • Hunger, abundance, deprivation, indulgence, addiction, and the illusion of incompleteness
  • Feeling idiotic, depressed, needy, judgmental, sad, lonely, hungry, etc
  • Trishna—thirst, desire, wanting—and the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts
  • Samsara and the propulsion of endless wanderings of seperation/seeking
  • Ajahn Chah and being with what is, rather than struggling against it
  • Relating wisely and tenderly to Buddha’s First Noble Truth of suffering
  • Nirvana as the end of cyclical grasping and the illusion that we are incomplete


“Nirvana is the end of cyclic existence, which is to say, the end of grasping and going around in circles looking for something that you are, but haven’t yet touched—the end of the illusion that we are incomplete.” – Jack Kornfield

This Dharma Talk from 02/01/1987 was originally published on DharmaSeed.

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