Jack Kornfield quotes
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“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Twitter post from Jan 31, 2015
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“The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Twitter post from Oct 07, 2015
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“In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To bow to the fact of our life's sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“One of the essential tasks for living a wise life is letting go. Letting go is the path to freedom. It is only by letting go of the hopes, the fears, the pain, the past, the stories that have a hold on us that we can quiet our mind and open our heart.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.14, Random House
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“You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another - and ourselves.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“We each need to make our lion's roar - to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears - to declare our right to awaken.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“No amount of outer technology, no amount of computers and biotechnology and nanotechnology is going to stop the continuation of warfare and racism and environmental destruction. What's called for on the Earth at this time is really a change of heart ... the question is really not the future of humanity, but the presence of eternity.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“I used to think that to become free you had to practice like a samurai warrior, but now I understand that you have to practice like a devoted mother of a newborn child. It takes the same energy but has a completely different quality. It's compassion and presence rather than having to defeat the enemy in battle.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“If you can sit quietly after difficult news, if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm, if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy, if you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate, and fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill,…  if you can always find contentment just where you are, you are probably a dog.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : "A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times". Book by Jack Kornfield, www.lionsroar.com. 2011.
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“Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : "Mila Kunis on Life With Ashton and Making Babies: 'There's Nothing We Don't Know About Each Other'". Interview with Jonah Weiner, www.glamour.com. July 6, 2016.
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“We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.71, Random House
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“To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“...Spiritual opening is not a withdrawal to some imagined realm or safe cave. It is not a pulling away, but a touching of all the experience of life with wisdom and with a heart of kindness, without any separation.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The questions asked at the end of lie are very simple ones: Did I love well? Did I love the people around me, my community, the earth, in a deep way? And perhaps, Did I live fully? Did I offer myself to life?”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his students asked about this, he replied, "I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“As we encounter new experiences with a mindful and wise attention, we discover that one of three things will happen to our new experience: it will go away, it will stay the same, or it will get more intense. whatever happens does not really matter.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“What would we have to hold in compassion to be at peace right now? What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now?”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the "quivering of the pure heart" when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“The independence and rebelliousness of our adolescence offer us yet another quality essential to our practice; the insistence that we find out the truth for ourselves, accepting no one's word above our own experience.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Every individual has a unique contribution.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life’s fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“When we feel anger toward someone, we can consider that they are a being just like us, who has faced much suffering in life.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice. Only in this moment can we discover that which is timeless. Only here can we find the love that we seek. Love in the past is simply memory, and love in the future is fantasy. Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Twitter post from Oct 09, 2015
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“We don't know all the reasons that propel us on a spiritual journey, but somehow our life compels us to go.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our compass to our highest intentions in the present moment”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The trouble is that you think you have time.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Twitter post from Feb 12, 2015
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“The task is not to perfect yourself, it's to perfect your love.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“We need courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy-mate rial or spiritual. We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Attention to the human body brings healing and regeneration. Through awareness of the body we remember who we really are.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“In the end, forgiveness simply means never putting another person out of our heart.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Tending to ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Wherever you are is the perfect place to awaken. This moment is the exact place to practice compassion and loving awareness. You have all the ingredients to breathe and find freedom just where you are.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The emotional wisdom of the heart is simple. When we accept our human feelings, a remarkable transformation occurs. Tenderness and wisdom arise naturally and spontaneously. Where we once sought strength over others, now our strength becomes our own; where we once sought to defend ourselves, we laugh.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Whatever your difficulties - a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness - you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do - despite your circumstances - are to be present and to be willing to love.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : Jack Kornfield (2014). “A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times”, p.59, Sounds True
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“You need a community. They remind you when you forget, and you remind them when they forget.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“In deep self-acceptance grows a compassionate understanding. As one Zen master said when I asked if he ever gets angry, 'Of course I get angry, but then a few minutes later I say to myself, 'What's the use of this,' and I let it go.'”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Nirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isn’t watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it."”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To see the preciousness of all things, we must bring our full attention to life”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“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.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does not mean we will allow injustice again.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Train your mind the same way you’d train a puppy: Be patient, be consistent, and have some fun along the way.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today,”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Everything has a beginning and an ending. Make peace with that and all will be well...In life we cannot avoid change, we cannot avoid loss. Freedom and happiness are found in the flexibility and ease with which we move through change.”
-- Jack KornfieldSource : "Fictional character: Jet Black". "Cowboy Bebop", www.imdb.com. 1998 - 2003.
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“In our charade with ourselves we pretend that our war is not really war. We have changed the name of the War Department to the Defense Department and call a whole class of nuclear missiles Peace Keepers!”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To become mindful … present … is really the invitation to work with the joys and the sorrows of the world, and to do so with this gift, this capacity of loving awareness, of attention that actually can be present for the whole dance.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“We need to learn how to honor and use a practice for as long as it serves us—which in most cases is a very long time—but to look at it as just that, a vehicle, a raft to help us cross through the waters of doubt, confusion, desire, and fear.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Knowledge and achievements matter little if we do not yet know how to touch the heart of another and be touched.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present - our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love - everything that moves us most deeply.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To begin to meditate is to look into our lives with interest in kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Within each of us there is a silence as vast as the universe. We long for it. We can return to it.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“This life is a test-it is only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do. Remember, this life is only a test.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“You awaken your True spirit by way of the broken heart: ragged, vulnerable, fierce and finally compassionate. Chris trod this rough way and shows honestly how it can be done.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To undertake a genuine spiritual path is not to avoid difficulties but to learn the art of making mistakes wakefully, to bring them to the transformative power of our heart.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Forgiveness does not mean that we have to continue to relate to those who have done us harm. In some cases the best practice may be to end our connection, to never speak to or be with a harmful person again. Sometimes in the process of forgiveness a person who hurts or betrayed us may wish to make amends, but even this does not require us to put ourselves in the way of further harm.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“In deep self acceptance, grows a compassionate understanding.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Built on the foundation of concentration is the third aspect of the Buddha’s path of awakening: clarity of vision and the development of wisdom.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“There is no higher happiness than peace.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“Samadhi doesn’t just come of itself; it takes practice.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“There is a web of life into which we are born, from which we can never fall.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“It is not enough to know that love and forgiveness are possible. We have to find ways to bring them to life.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“As we step out of the way new things are born.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“We have so many ideas and beliefs about ourselves. We told ourselves story about what we want and who we are, smart or kind. Often these are the unexamined and limited ideas of others that we have internalized and then gone on to life out.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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“The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Every individual in the world has a unique contribution.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“Beneath the sophistication of Buddhist psychology lies the simplicity of compassion. We can touch into this compassion whenever the mind is quiet, whenever we allow the heart to open.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
“In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart's task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion.”
-- Jack Kornfield -
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