Quote

Though outer events may be difficult, the key to our happiness is how our mind responds to them.

Jack Kornfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jack Kornfield
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: July 16
Author
Psychologist
Writer
the United States of America
Happiness
Difficult
May
Mind
Responds
Outer
Keys
Events
Though

More quotes by Jack Kornfield

Image
Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.
Jack Kornfield
Image
You awaken your True spirit by way of the broken heart: ragged, vulnerable, fierce and finally compassionate. Chris trod this rough way and shows honestly how it can be done.
Jack Kornfield
Image
Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.
Jack Kornfield
Image
The emotional wisdom of the heart is simple. When we accept our human feelings, a remarkable transformation occurs. Tenderness and wisdom arise naturally and spontaneously. Where we once sought strength over others, now our strength becomes our own where we once sought to defend ourselves, we laugh.
Jack Kornfield
Image
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.
Jack Kornfield
Image
Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.
Jack Kornfield
Image
The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.
Jack Kornfield
Image
When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present - our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love - everything that moves us most deeply.
Jack Kornfield
Image
Every individual has a unique contribution.
Jack Kornfield
Image
The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?
Jack Kornfield
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy—material or spiritual.
Jack Kornfield
Image
To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free.
Jack Kornfield
Image
This life is a test-it is only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do. Remember, this life is only a test.
Jack Kornfield
Image
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
Image
True love is not for the faint-hearted.
Jack Kornfield
Image
Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole.
Jack Kornfield
Image
The trouble is that you think you have time.
Jack Kornfield
Image
Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways between nations, we free ourselves from the past.
Jack Kornfield