Top 100 Kornfield Quotes

#1. We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather around us, that they may see their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer perhaps even a fiercer life because of our quiet. William Butler Yeats

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #1312
#2. Attachment is conditional, offers love only to certain people in certain ways; it is exclusive. Love, in the sense of metta, used by Buddha, is a universal, nondiscriminating feeling of caring and connectedness.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #2521
#3. When sleepy, meditate with your eyes open wide. Stand in place for a few minutes or do walking meditation. If it's really bad, walk briskly or walk backward, splash some water on your face. Sleepiness is something we can respond to creatively. When

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #6105
#4. Knowledge and achievements matter little if we do not yet know how to touch the heart of another and be touched.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #12996
#5. Then one day you will be sitting and fear will arise, and you will feel it and recognize it and think, "Oh, this is fear, I recognize you. Welcome back." Then it is as if the fear becomes one of your friends.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #16100
#6. The dharma is a universal medicine.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #34375
#7. Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #44569
#8. Working with these distractions, steadying the canoe, letting the waves pass by, and coming back again and again in a quiet and collected way, is at the heart of meditation. After

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #67119
#9. In a society that almost demands life at double time, speed and addictions numb us to our own experience. In such a society, it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or the earth where we live.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #67985
#10. If you put a spoonful of salt in a cup of water it tastes very salty. If you put a spoonful of salt in a lake of fresh water the taste is still pure and clear. Peace comes when our hearts are open like the sky, vast as the ocean.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #71827
#11. 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

Kornfield Quotes #72858
#12. In this world there are two great sources of strength. One rests with those who are not afraid to kill. The other rests with those who are not afraid to love.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #73161
#13. When we have for so long been judged by everyone we meet, just to look into the eyes of another who does not judge us can be extraordinarily healing.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #76301
#14. Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #90334
#15. 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

Kornfield Quotes #91010
#16. Spiritual practice should not be confused with grim duty. It is the laughter of the Dalai Lama and the wonder born with every child.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #91282
#17. The person who betrayed you is sunning themselves on a beach in Hawaii and you're knotted up in hatred. Who is suffering?

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #100772
#18. Refraining from false speech: speech from the heart. Undertake for one week not to gossip (positively or negatively) or speak about anyone you know who is not present with you (any third party).

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #101685
#19. As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #112865
#20. To learn to concentrate we must choose a prayer or meditation and follow this path with commitment and steadiness, a willingness to work with our practice day after day, no matter what arises.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #115600
#21. Great spiritual traditions are used as a means to ripen us, to bring us face to face with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and a strength of heart.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #117627
#22. What we find as we listen to the songs of our rage or fear, loneliness or longing, is that they do not stay forever. Rage turns into sorrow; sorrow turns into tears; tears may fall for a long time, but then the sun comes out.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #118740
#23. In sitting on the meditation cushion and assuming the meditation posture, we connect ourselves with the present moment in this body and on this earth.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #124315
#24. The trouble is that you think you have time.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #138953
#25. The truth is that things change whether we want them to or not. Becoming attached to things as they are or pushing things away that we do not like does not stop them from changing. It only leads to further suffering.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #152301
#26. In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #155569
#27. True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds. As Achaan Chah put it, "If you haven't cried a number of times, your meditation hasn't really begun." A

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #169034
#28. The Sufis have a saying: "Praise Allah, and tie your camel to a post." This brings together both parts of practice: pray, yes, but also make sure that you do what is necessary in the world.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #169818
#29. True love is not for the faint-hearted.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #173146
#30. As the Buddha said, People with opinions just go around bothering one another.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #174081
#31. As we step out of the way new things are born.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #175824
#32. To protect the separate self, we push certain things away, while to bolster it we hold on to other things and identify with them. A

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #178172
#33. 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 Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #191641
#34. Accumulated knots in the fabric of our body, previously undetected, begin to reveal themselves as we open.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #198323
#35. 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

Kornfield Quotes #201005
#36. The suffering and happiness in our world, both individual and collective, depend on our consciousness.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #202408
#37. Attention to the human body brings healing and regeneration. Through awareness of the body we remember who we really are.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #213642
#38. Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #227725
#39. Expressing gratitude to our benefactors is a natural form of love. In fact, some people find loving kindness for themselves so hard, they begin their practice with a benefactor. This too is fine. The rule in loving kindness practice is to follow the way that most easily opens your heart.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #252061
#40. The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #252143
#41. 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

Kornfield Quotes #252791
#42. 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

Kornfield Quotes #255539
#43. To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #258507
#44. Through practice, gently and gradually we can collect ourselves and learn how to be more fully with what we do.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #259286
#45. Buddhists were actually the first cognitive-behavioral therapists.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #263540
#46. We need to learn how to honor and use a practice for as long as it serves us.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #269318
#47. My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes - most of which never happened. Mark Twain

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #278422
#48. If this day in the lifetime of a hundred years is lost, will you ever touch it with your hands again? The

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #284568
#49. 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

Kornfield Quotes #286381
#50. Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #293462
#51. No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #297084
#52. identify with everything so easily - with your body, your thoughts, your opinions, your roles - and so you suffer. I have released all identification.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #301408
#53. To begin to meditate is to look into our lives with interest in kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #315659
#54. As you acknowledge desire or wanting, you can begin to see that your mind acts a little like a child at Disneyland: I want that candy and I want to go on that ride and I want that stuffed toy.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #324384
#55. Tending to ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #327712
#56. 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

Kornfield Quotes #328041
#57. Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #328901
#58. The way I treat my body is not disconnected from the way I treat my family or the commitment I have to peace on our earth.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #328918
#59. Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #333647
#60. The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #336084
#61. 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

Kornfield Quotes #337108
#62. To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #337768
#63. The quieting of our mind is a political act.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #343588
#64. Spiritual life doesn't make you a good person; you ARE a good person, you are a holy being when you are born. What spiritual life does is remind us that this is who we really are.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #351326
#65. Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #351604
#66. As we follow a genuine path of practice, our sufferings may seem to increase because we no longer hide from them or from ourselves. When we do not follow the old habits of fantasy and escape, we are left facing the actual problems and contradictions of our life.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #354696
#67. Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways between nations, we free ourselves from the past.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #356876
#68. If you expect your life to be up and down, your mind will be much more peaceful.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #361717
#69. most often the kinds of pains we encounter in meditative attention are not indications of physical problems. They are the painful, physical manifestations of our emotional, psychological, and spiritual holdings and contractions.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #379319
#70. True emptiness is not empty, but contains all things. The mysterious and pregnant void creates and reflects all possibilities. From it arises our individuality, which can be discovered and developed, although never possessed or fixed.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #379775
#71. Mindfulness and fearless presence bring true protection. When we meet the world with recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-identification, we discover that wherever we are, freedom is possible, just as the rain falls on and nurtures all things equally.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #380153
#72. The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #380978
#73. The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #381648
#74. Whatever we cultivate in times of ease, we gather as strength for times of change.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #383764
#75. Strength of the Heart comes from knowing that the pain that we each must bear is part of the greater pain shared by all that lives. It is not just 'our' pain, but 'the' pain and realizing this awakens our universal compassion

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #387913
#76. We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #404694
#77. But forgiveness is the act of not putting anyone out of your heart, even those who are acting out of deep ignorance or out of confusion and pain.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #410723
#78. The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #416100
#79. As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #419424
#80. 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

Kornfield Quotes #441079
#81. When repeated difficulties do arise, our first spiritual approach is to acknowledge what is present, naming, softly saying 'sadness, sadness', or 'remembering, remembering', or whatever.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #444754
#82. We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #455616
#83. We can struggle with what is. We can judge and blame others or ourselves. Or we can accept what cannot be changed. Peace comes from an honorable and open heart accepting what is true. Do we want to remain stuck? Or to release the fearful sense of self and rest kindly where we are?

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #470451
#84. Refraining from stealing: care with material goods. Undertake for one week to act on every single thought of generosity that arises spontaneously in your heart.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #478734
#85. In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." Some

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #490143
#86. In truly listening to our most painful songs, we can learn the divine art of forgiveness.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #495338
#87. The root of the problem is that everyone has to first discover the root of anger and hatred inside themselves before they can understand how it operates in the outside world.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #501482
#88. George Washington Carver explained, "Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." Mindfulness is this kind

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #506131
#89. O Nobly Born, now there is born in you exceeding compassion for all those living creatures who have forgotten their true nature. - Mahamudra text of Tibetan yogi Longchenpa

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #526531
#90. The waves do keep coming, so learn to surf.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #549334
#91. It is the place of feeling that binds us or frees us.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #550326
#92. We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy - material or spiritual.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #569580
#93. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #572830
#94. You need a community. They remind you when you forget, and you remind them when they forget.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #575902
#95. you must be present to win.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #590564
#96. The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #592771
#97. Trying to hold onto "how it was" will only create suffering and disappointment, because life is a river and everything changes.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #593968
#98. Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim - arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #608540
#99. We can bring a heart of understanding and compassion to a world that needs it so much.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #614503
#100. The focusing of attention on the breath is perhaps the most universal of the many hundreds of meditation subjects used worldwide.

Jack Kornfield

Kornfield Quotes #628727

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