Jack Kornfield Quotes - Page 3

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• Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss and hiding from the basic truths of the natural world and of our own nature.

  Jack Kornfield

  Pain, Fighting, Buddhism

  Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.23, Random House

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  Heart, Simple, Emotional

  24 Copy quote

• It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can't close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart.

  Jack Kornfield

  Flower, Heart, Night

  36 Copy quote

• 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

  Running, Pain, Disappointment

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Struggle, Heart, Self

  Jack Kornfield (2010). “The Art Of Forgiveness, Loving Kindness And Peace”, p.162, Random House

  41 Copy quote

• Grant that I have enough suffering that my heart really opens to the great compassion of this world, that I be given enough so that I don't wall myself off from the world, that it breaks down the heart and the separation and the ego and the fear, and it lets me touch the nectar, the milk of kindness itself, of something greater.

  Jack Kornfield

  Wall, Kindness, Heart

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Individuality, Void, Emptiness

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Letting Go, Spiritual, Important

  83 Copy quote

• Forgiveness sees wisely. It willingly acknowledges what is unjust, harmful, and wrong. It bravely recognizes sufferings of the past, and understands the conditions that brought them about.Forgiveness honors the heart's greatest dignity. Whenever we are lost, it brings us back to the ground of love.Without forgiveness our lives are chained, forced to carry the sufferings of the past and repeat them with no release.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Past, Honor

  59 Copy quote

• Use whatever has come to awaken patience, understanding, and love.

  Jack Kornfield

  Understanding, And Love, Use

  5 Copy quote

• Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole.

  Jack Kornfield

  Spring, Love Life, Caring

  Jack Kornfield (2010). “The Art Of Forgiveness, Loving Kindness And Peace”, p.67, Random House

  23 Copy quote

• The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom.

  Jack Kornfield

  Spiritual, Mind, Special

  20 Copy quote

• It is the basic principle of spiritual life that we learn the deepest things in unknown territory. Often it is when we feel most confused inwardly and are in the midst of our greatest difficulties that something new will open. We awaken most easily to the mystery of life through our weakest side. The areas of our greatest strength, where we are the most competent and clearest, tend to keep us away from the mystery.

  Jack Kornfield

  Spiritual, Confused, Principles

  7 Copy quote

• Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.

  Jack Kornfield

  Inspirational, Pain, Hate

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  Letting Go, Heart, Fighting

  55 Copy quote

• The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.

  Jack Kornfield

  Practice, Goal, Mind

  Jack Kornfield (2011). “The Buddha Is Still Teaching: Contemporary Buddhist Wisdom”, p.5, Shambhala Publications

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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

  Simple, Simplicity, Students

  23 Copy quote

• In the end, forgiveness simply means never putting another person out of our heart.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Mean, Ends

  Jack Kornfield (2012). “Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are”, p.54, Shambhala Publications

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• Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.

  Jack Kornfield

  Way, Indifference, Misguided

  Twitter post from Oct 17, 2015

  7 Copy quote

• When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover within them something greater. We discover that within the very limitations of form, of our maleness and femaleness, of our parenthood and our childhood, of gravity on the earth and the changing of the seasons, is the freedom and harmony we have sought for so long. Our individual life is an expression of the whole mystery, and in it we can rest in the center of the movement, the center of all worlds.

  Jack Kornfield

  Expression, Long, Childhood

  8 Copy quote

• Finding a way to extend forgiveness to ourselves is one of our most essential tasks. Just as others have been caught in suffering, so have we. If we look honestly at our life, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves; we can hold the pain we have caused in compassion. Without such mercy, we will live our own life in exile.

  Jack Kornfield

  Pain, Compassion, Suffering

  Jack Kornfield (2012). “Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are”, p.55, Shambhala Publications

  53 Copy quote

• Attention to the human body brings healing and regeneration. Through awareness of the body we remember who we really are.

  Jack Kornfield

  Philosophy, Healing, Medicine

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Spiritual, Maturity, Emotional

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  Wisdom, Reality, Loving Yourself

  9 Copy quote

• Meditation practice is neither holding on nor avoiding; it is a settling back into the moment, opening to what is there.

  Jack Kornfield

  Meditation Practice, Holding On, Moments

  Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield (2001). “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation”, p.23, Shambhala Publications

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