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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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Jack Kornfield
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: July 16
Author
Psychologist
Writer
the United States of America
Heart
Bring
Transformative
Mistake
Undertake
Path
Difficulties
Spiritual
Spirituality
Learn
Genuine
Making
Avoid
Art
Difficulty
Power
Mistakes

More quotes by Jack Kornfield

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The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need them.” Or, “I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.” This isn’t love at all - it is attachment - and attachment is rigid, it is very different from love.
Jack Kornfield
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Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?
Jack Kornfield
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Gratitude is confidence in life itself. In it, we feel how the same force that pushes grass through cracks in the sidewalk invigorates our own life.
Jack Kornfield
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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
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Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.
Jack Kornfield
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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
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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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For most of us, generosity is a quality that must be developed. We have to respect that it will grow gradually otherwise our spirituality can become idealistic and imitative, acting out the image of generosity before it has become genuine.
Jack Kornfield
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When we let go of yearning for the future, preoccupation with the past, and strategies to protect the present, there is nowhere left to go but where we are. To connect with the present moment is to begin to appreciate the beauty of true simplicity.
Jack Kornfield
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Yet I knew that spiritual practice is impossible without great dedication, energy, and commitment.
Jack Kornfield
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There is no higher happiness than peace.
Jack Kornfield
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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
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When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.
Jack Kornfield
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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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With mindfulness, we are learning to observe in a new way, with balance and a powerful disidentification.
Jack Kornfield
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As we step out of the way new things are born.
Jack Kornfield
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The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.
Jack Kornfield
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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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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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You are the mystery incarnating itself, and it's beautiful when you remember. It's also painful and awesome and it contains unbearable beauty and unfathomable pain - the ocean of tears and galaxy of bliss. I don't say that lightly, but it's what we have.
Jack Kornfield