Quote

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
Making
Avoid
Art
Difficulty
Power
Mistakes
Heart
Bring
Transformative
Mistake
Undertake
Path
Difficulties
Spiritual
Spirituality
Learn
Genuine

More quotes by Jack Kornfield

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Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.
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If we are engaged in actions that cause pain and conflict to ourselves and others, it is impossible for the mind to become settled, collected, and focused in meditation it is impossible for the heart to open.
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The work of your heart, the work of taking time, to listen, to help, is also your gift to the whole of the world
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The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.
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Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart
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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
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How did we get into this funny-looking body that has a hole at one end in which we regularly stuff dead plants and animals? It's bizarre that we got here, incarnated into this world with these bodies.
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Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.
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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.
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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.
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In any moment we can learn to let go of hatred and fear. We can rest in peace, love, and forgiveness. It is never too late. Yet to sustain love we need to develop practices that cultivate and strengthen the natural compassion within us.
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Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?
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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.
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We do not have to improve ourselves we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.
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Every facet, every department of your mind, is to be programmed by you. And unless you assume your rightful responsibility, and begin to program your own mind, the world will program it for you.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
Jack Kornfield
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It is the place of feeling that binds us or frees us.
Jack Kornfield
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We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.
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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.
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Whatever you believe cosmologically, we all know the tears of the world. We each carry a certain measure of those tears in our hearts.
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