Wise Heart Way

Principle #13: There are both healthy desires and unhealthy desires. Know the difference. Then find freedom in their midst.

Practice: Generosity

Principle #12: The unhealthy patterns of our personality can be recognized and transformed into a healthy expression of our natural temperament.

Practice: Acknowledging Your Personality Type

Principle #10: Thoughts are often one-sided and untrue. Learn to be mindful of thought instead of being lost in it.

Practice: One-Sided Thoughts

Principle #7: Mindful attention to any experience is liberating. Mindfulness brings perspective, balance, and freedom.

Practice: Establishing a Daily Meditation

Principle #6: Our life has universal and personal nature. Both dimensions must be respected if we are to be happy and free.

Practice: Seeing From the Universal Perspective

Principle #5: The ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.

Practice: The Creation and Dissolution of Self

Principle #4: Recognize the mental states that fill consciousness. Shift from unhealthy states to healthy ones.

Practice: Recognizing Mental States

Principle #3: When we shift attention from experience to the spacious consciousness that knows, wisdom arises.

Practice: The River of Sound

Principle #2: Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.

Practice: A Meditation of Compassion

Principle #1: see the inner nobility and beauty of all human beings.

I am loving reading the posts and encourage everyone to continue to post free form with whatever and however it occurs. I love what's developing here.

The organizing idea behind this blog is to read the The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology by Jack Kornfield over the course of this year,  do the practices in each chapter. and write about it. I've already read the book once, and my thought was, that if I read this book slowly, very consciously do the practices, write about my experience, and surround myself with people who will hold my feet to the fire, that would support my wish to improve my "way of being with the world" (Kornfield 7).

Anyway, I don't want to get all project-y about it, but imposing some structure as a way to keep me honest seemed to me to be a good idea. So I did develop a schedule (don't let that word freak you out) and will be posting the milestones (principle, chapter, practice) here every two weeks throughout the year. My fellow bloggers may or may not follow this same schedule.