Quote

When repeated difficulties do arise, our first spiritual approach is to acknowledge what is present, naming, softly saying 'sadness, sadness', or 'remembering, remembering', or whatever.

Jack Kornfield

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Jack Kornfield
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: July 16
Author
Psychologist
Writer
the United States of America
Suffering
Acknowledge
Whatever
Arise
Spiritual
Sadness
Remember
Buddhism
Naming
Firsts
Difficulty
Softly
First
Approach
Repeated
Present
Remembering
Saying
Difficulties

More quotes by 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.
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There are no holy places and no holy people, only holy moments, only moments of wisdom.
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Without integrity and conscience we lose our freedom.
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As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. But if you say, 'This is what I am, it is a fact that I am going to investigate and understand,' then you can go beyond.
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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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If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.
Jack Kornfield
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What would we have to hold in compassion to be at peace right now? What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now?
Jack Kornfield
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All of spiritual practice is a matter of relationship: to ourselves, to others, to life's situations.
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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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.
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Use whatever has come to awaken patience, understanding, and love.
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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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True love is not for the faint-hearted.
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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.
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It is possible to speak with our heart directly. Most ancient cultures know this. We can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. In modern life we have become so busy with our daily affairs and thoughts that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
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Indifference pretends to create peace, but it is based on not caring, a silent resignation. It is a movement away, a separation fed by a subtle fear of the heart. We pull back, believing that what happens to others is not our concern. Our courage leaves us. Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.
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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.
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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?
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Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.
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