Jack Kornfield

The American Jack Kornfield ( born 1945 ) practiced many years of Buddhism in Thailand, Burma and India. Since 1974 he is active worldwide as a teacher of the Buddhist Vipassana meditation in the tradition of early Buddhist Theravada.

After he was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1967, he joined the American aid organization Peace Corps and traveled to northern Thailand, where some of the oldest Buddhist forest monasteries in the world are. There he met the Buddhist master Ajahn Chah and became his disciple as a fully ordained bhikkhu with the Pali name Sunno. 1972 Jack Kornfield returned to the USA and founded in 1975 together with Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts.

Kornfield has become one of the most important teachers of Theravada Buddhism to the West. He devoted many years of his work to translate the Eastern spiritual teachings in an understandable form for Western people and Western society and to pass alive. His books, audio CDs and teachings are an inspiration to many people interested in Buddhism in the West. Jack Kornfield holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and is a co-founder of Spirit Rock Center in Woodacre, California, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Some of his books have been bestsellers. In German-speaking Kornfield was the Buddha especially through his book Ask and go the way of the heart known.

Kornfield is one of the scientists involved in the " Mind and Life " dialogues of the Mind and Life Institute.