Jack Kornfield Quotes

There is a web of life into which we are born, from which we can never fall.

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.

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.

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.

Everyone and everything is in some degree or other our teacher.

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.

The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.

Only a deep attention to the whole of our life can bring us the capacity to love well and live freely.

Every individual has a unique contribution.

When we feel anger toward someone, we can consider that they are a being just like us, who has faced much suffering in life.

No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our compass to our highest intentions in the present moment

The task is not to perfect yourself, it's to perfect your love.

Tending to ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves.

It is our commitment to wholeness that matters, the willingness to unfold in every deep aspect of our being.

In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.

Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart

It is the place of feeling that binds us or frees us.

Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears.

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

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are.

It's much better to become a Buddha than a Buddhist.

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

We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

There are many ways up the mountain and each of us must choose a practice that feels true to our heart.

As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.

Embodied courage chooses not to wait until illness or notice of death demands attention.

In the crystal of the awakened consciousness, one facet is love.

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.

The grief we carry is part of the grief of the world. Hold it gently. Let it be honored. You do not have to keep it in anymore. You can let go into the heart of compassion; you can weep.

We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?

It is not enough to know that love and forgiveness are possible. We have to find ways to bring them to life.

To let go in the deepest recesses of the heart, to release all struggle and wanting, leads us to that knowing which is timeless.

Great pain, when it is honored from the heart, opens into great understanding.

The wholeness and freedom we seek is our true nature, who we really are.

There is no higher happiness than peace.

Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.

The focusing of attention on the breath is perhaps the most universal of the many hundreds of meditation subjects used worldwide.

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.

To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free.

Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim—arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object.

Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.

In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion.

The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but organically, through understanding an gradual training.

The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.

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.

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

Nobody knows why they were born or where they come from.

Life without forgiveness is unbearable.

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.

The awakened heart and mind can be experienced as clarity itself, pure knowing.