Quote

One of the essential tasks for living a wise life is letting go. Letting go is the path to freedom. It is only by letting go of the hopes, the fears, the pain, the past, the stories that have a hold on us that we can quiet our mind and open 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
Wise
Hopes
Mind
Path
Letting
Life
Open
Fears
Freedom
Tasks
Pain
Essential
Living
Essentials
Stories
Quiet
Past
Hold

More quotes by Jack Kornfield

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When we take time to quiet ourselves, we can all sense that our life could be lived with greater compassion and greater weakness.
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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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Though outer events may be difficult, the key to our happiness is how our mind responds to them.
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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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Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.
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There are many good forms of meditation practice. A good meditation practice is any one that develops awareness or mindfulness of our body and our sense, of our mind and heart.
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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There are no holy places and no holy people, only holy moments, only moments of wisdom.
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We don't know all the reasons that propel us on a spiritual journey, but somehow our life compels us to go.
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Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.
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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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With growing awareness, you can see where you're caught or where you suffer or where you create suffering. You can then turn toward the difficulties that arise in your life with compassion, bow, and say, these too are part of human incarnation.
Jack Kornfield
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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?
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
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When our identity expands to include everything, we find a peace with the dance of the world. The ocean of life rises and falls within us - birth and death, joy and pain, it is all ours, and our heart is full and empty, large enough to embrace it all.
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The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them.
Jack Kornfield
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With mindfulness, we are learning to observe in a new way, with balance and a powerful disidentification.
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Through practice, gently and gradually we can collect ourselves and learn how to be more fully with what we do.
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Those who are Awake live in a state of constant amazement.
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Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.
Jack Kornfield