Sharon Salzberg Quotes

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.

The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.

We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.

Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.

We spend our lives searching for something we think we don't have, something that will make us happy. But the key to our deepest happiness lies in changing our vision of where to seek it.

If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness.

You are capable of so much more than we usually dare to imagine

What comes up is not nearly as important as how you relate to what comes up.

All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we're heading down an unhealthy path, and, if so, let go and change directions.

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.

To be truly happy in this world is a revolutionary act...It is a radical change of view that liberates us so that we know who we are most deeply and can acknowledge our enormous ability to love.

If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to re-commit, to be whole-hearted once again.

Meditation is a microcosm, a model, a mirror. The skills we practice when we sit are transferable to the rest of our lives.

Loving kindness is the spirit of friendship toward yourself and others.

True happiness is born of letting go of what is unnecessary.

What unites us as human beings is an urge for happiness which at heart is a yearning for union.

Mindfulness helps us to set boundaries by revealing what makes us unhappy & what brings us peace.

Someone who has experienced trauma also has gifts to offer all of us - in their depth, their knowledge of our universal vulnerability, and their experience of the power of compassion.

Each decision we make, each action we take, is born out of an intention.

You might have extensive bouts of thinking exceedingly nasty thoughts, but because you are relating to those thoughts with mindfulness and compassion, that's considered good meditation.

Faith is not a commodity we either have or don't have-it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

Detachment is not about refusing to feel or not caring or turning away from those you love. Detachment is profoundly honest, grounded firmly in the truth of what is.

To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone & everything can flower again from within.

In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go.

We are all too often told by someone that we are too old, too young, too different, too much the same, and those comments can be devastating.

Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you're doing.

Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.

When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life.

We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.

Mindfulness, also called wise attention, helps us see what we’re adding to our experiences, not only during meditation sessions but also elsewhere.

Meditation isn’t about what’s happening; it’s about how you relate to what’s happening.

Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country and this world.

Find a gap between a trigger event and our usual conditioned response to it and by using that pause to collect ourselves and shift our response

Meditation clarifies our minds and opens our hearts, and brings us to unusual depth and stability of happiness, whatever life brings.

Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.

We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us.

Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others

Compassion isn't morose; it's something replenishing and opening; that's why it makes us happy.

By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home.

To offer our hearts in faith means recognizing that our hearts are worth something, that we ourselves, in our deepest and truest nature, are of value.

There are many different ways to practice meditation; it's good to experiment until you find one that seems to suit you.

Whatever life presents us, our response can be an expression of our compassion.

Develop a mind so filled with love that it resembles space.

We long for permanence but everything in the known universe is transient. That's a fact but one we fight.

I call myself a meditation teacher rather than a spiritual teacher.

With the practice of meditation we can develop this ability to more fully love ourselves and to more consistently love others.

As we work to reweave the strands of connection, we can be supported by the wisdom and lovingkindness of others.

We use mindfulness to observe the way we cling to pleasant experiences & push away unpleasant ones.