In this episode, Jack Kornfield and Trudy Goodman invite practitioners to understand the present moment as the Great Turning—Joanna Macy's term for the breakdown of exploitative late-stage capitalist systems and the emergence of new, more compassionate ways of living. Rather than succumb to fear and blame, they teach how to access fierce, grounded compassion; work with impermanent emotions; release systemic division; and become Bodhisattvas—agents of awakening—by meeting the world through loving awareness, community, and the willingness to feed and care for one another.
What Is the Great Turning and Why Does It Matter Now?
Kornfield and Goodman frame the present global crisis not merely as a disaster but as a sacred threshold. Drawing on Buddhist teacher and activist Joanna Macy's concept of the Great Turning, they describe a fundamental shift: the collapse of an extractive, exploitative economic and cultural system alongside the simultaneous emergence of more life-affirming alternatives. This is not naïve optimism; rather, it is a realistic assessment of where humanity stands.
The Great Turning unfolds on three levels. First, there is direct action and resistance—standing against injustice and harm. Second, there is structural change—building new institutions and systems rooted in care rather than extraction. Third, and most subtle, there is a shift in consciousness—a reclaiming of our interconnectedness and capacity for love. All three are necessary, and all three are already underway across the globe.
For practitioners listening to this teaching, the implication is clear: this is not a time to retreat into spiritual bypassing or detachment. The Great Turning calls for what Kornfield and Goodman term "fierce compassion"—a quality that combines clear-eyed seeing of what is broken with an unshakeable commitment to love and healing.
How Do We Navigate Fear, Blame, and the Cultural Media Machine?
One of the most immediate obstacles to becoming a Bodhisattva of the Great Turning is the grip of fear. Kornfield and Goodman acknowledge that the contemporary media ecosystem—designed to capture attention through outrage and anxiety—systematically activates our nervous systems. Fear politics, divisive narratives, and the constant barrage of bad news create a baseline of stress that can paralyze spiritual practitioners.
The teaching here is not to deny fear or pretend it away, but to work with it mindfully. Goodman offers a particular insight about intense emotions: when we resist them or push them away, they feel boundless. "Tears feel endless, bottomless, when they don't have a chance to fall," she says. But when we allow emotions to move through us—when we let the tears come without judgment—something shifts. "When they get to fall, they fall and fall, but they stop because tears too are impermanent, they cannot fall forever."
This principle extends to fear, rage, and grief. By meeting these emotions with awareness rather than resistance, we discover they have a natural arc. They are not the drowning floods we fear. This opens space for a different kind of response—one grounded in clarity rather than reactivity.
Regarding blame and shame, the teachers emphasize that these emotions, while understandable, often become obstacles to the compassionate action the moment requires. Blame fixes the world into rigid roles of perpetrator and victim, foreclosing the possibility of transformation. Shame collapses into self-focus at a time when love and connection are needed. Instead, Kornfield and Goodman invite practitioners to move toward responsibility—the ability to respond—which includes both accountability and the recognition that we are all entangled in systems larger than any individual.
What Does It Mean to Meet the World Through the Bodhisattva Vows?
Central to this teaching is the Bodhisattva path—a Buddhist framework in which practitioners commit to liberation not for themselves alone but for all beings. The Bodhisattva Vows are a classical expression of this intention: to save all beings from suffering, to cut off all delusions, to master all dharmic teachings, to attain complete enlightenment for the sake of all.
For Kornfield and Goodman, these vows are not abstract ideals. They are a practical reorientation of how we relate to the world. A Bodhisattva of the Great Turning is someone who recognizes that feeding people, loving people, and tending to community are not separate from enlightenment—they are expressions of enlightenment. This dissolves a common false split between "spiritual practice" and "social engagement."
The Bodhisattva meets the world with what the teachers call "loving awareness" and "compassion." This is not sentimental. It is a fierce, clear-eyed commitment to seeing the dignity and potential in every person and every situation, even amid injustice. It includes the willingness to set boundaries, to say no to harm, and to stand for what is right—all without hardening the heart.
How Can We Work with Uncertainty and Impermanence?
Kornfield invokes the teaching of Ajahn Chah, a revered Thai Forest Buddhist teacher, who taught directly into the reality of uncertainty. In an uncertain world, there is no ground to cling to. The Great Turning itself is a manifestation of impermanence on a civilizational scale. Old certainties are dissolving, and new forms have not yet fully crystallized.
The teaching here is not resignation but liberation. When we stop trying to nail everything down—when we stop demanding guarantees—we discover a kind of freedom. We can "pick all the flowers, but you can't stop the spring," as the teachers note. We cannot control outcomes, but we can show up fully with our care and effort. We can tend the garden without demanding that it yield according to our schedule.
This is where mindfulness becomes crucial. The capacity to respond thoughtfully to any trigger or circumstance—rather than reacting habitually—depends on a steady awareness of what is actually present, moment to moment. This awareness is cultivated through meditation, through conscious breathing, through pauses that create space between stimulus and response.
What Role Does Community Play in Transformation?
Kornfield and Goodman emphasize that the Great Turning cannot unfold in isolation. Community is not a luxury or a nice add-on to individual practice; it is fundamental. "Community is the antidote for loneliness," they teach, and loneliness is one of the deepest weapons of systems that want to keep us fragmented and powerless.
The image of imaginal cells is offered as a metaphor for social transformation. When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it does not happen through gradual modification. Instead, specialized cells called imaginal cells begin to cluster together within the caterpillar's body. These cells carry a completely different blueprint. They are, in some sense, revolutionary cells within the old form. When enough of them connect and coordinate, they cascade into a fundamental transformation of the entire organism.
Communities of practice—whether meditation groups, activist collectives, mutual aid networks, or spiritual sanghas—function as imaginal cells within the larger body of society. They hold a different frequency, embody different values, and model different ways of relating. As these communities grow and connect, they shift the possibility space of what humanity can become.
How Do We Become a Make-Weight of Hope?
Kornfield and Goodman introduce the concept of becoming a "make-weight of hope"—a phrase drawn from maritime tradition. A make-weight is ballast added to a scale or a ship to tip the balance. In a world where cruelty, extraction, and division exert enormous weight, individual and collective acts of love, generosity, and justice function as counterweights.
This is not about toxic positivity or minimizing real harm. Rather, it is about understanding that we are not powerless. Our choices—how we speak to the person next to us, whether we show up for our community, how we allocate our time and resources—matter. They tip the scales. They shift the frequency of what is possible.
The practice of inclining the heart toward kindness and generosity is not sentimental. It is strategic. It is how consciousness changes. When we choose compassion repeatedly, we train our own nervous system and our own mind. We also influence the field around us. Research in contemplative science increasingly shows that practices of loving-kindness and compassion have measurable effects on our physiology and on those around us.
What Is the Spiritual Significance of Times Like Passover and Easter?
The teachers weave in wisdom from other traditions, noting the spiritual significance of Passover and Easter. Both are festivals about liberation—liberation from bondage, liberation through resurrection. They speak to a deep human knowing that we are not permanently stuck, that transformation is possible, that the spring always comes.
In the context of the Great Turning, these archetypal stories take on renewed meaning. They remind us that every civilization has faced its crises and extinctions. Many have passed through death into new forms. This is not guaranteed—catastrophe is real—but it is not predetermined either. Our choices matter.
How Do We Interact with People Caught in Anxiety and Avoidance?
A practical concern Kornfield and Goodman address is how to relate to people who are highly anxious or avoidant in response to global crisis. Some people are in denial; others are consumed by dread. As practitioners committed to compassion, how do we meet them?
The answer involves what might be called "relational wisdom." It is not our job to convince someone or to dump our knowledge on them. Rather, we can offer presence. We can say hello. We can listen. We can model a different way of being—less anxious, more grounded, more capable. Over time, this can shift someone's nervous system and open them to new possibilities.
The practice of simply greeting people—"saying hello to the people around you," as the teachers put it—is revolutionary in a fragmented culture. It is an act of recognition, of seeing the other as a fellow being. It costs nothing and it changes everything.
What Happens When We Let Tension Release and Flow Into Relaxation?
Finally, Kornfield and Goodman teach that the Bodhisattva path includes the capacity to relax. Holding fierce compassion and clear seeing can create a kind of vigilant tension. There is a time for this. But there is also a time to let the shoulders drop, to breathe, to let the body settle.
This is not apathy. It is the recognition that we cannot be effective if we are perpetually braced. Relaxation is part of the rhythm of the Great Turning. We show up, we act, we grieve, we struggle—and then we rest. We let the muscles unclench. We allow joy and beauty to nourish us. This cyclical movement, rather than a perpetual state of crisis, is what allows humans to endure and to keep showing up over the long arc.
Where to Go From Here
The invitation from Kornfield and Goodman is to understand yourself as a Bodhisattva of the Great Turning. You are not separate from this moment in history. You are not waiting for some external authority to fix things. You are the one you have been waiting for. Begin with your own nervous system—learn to work with fear and emotion mindfully. Find or create community. Tend to the relationships and institutions around you. Incline your heart repeatedly toward kindness. Become a make-weight of hope that tips the scales toward love. And remember that like the spring, transformation cannot be stopped—only danced with, participated in, and nourished through your own fierce and boundless compassion.
