Quote

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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Jack Kornfield
Age: 79
Born: 1945
Born: July 16
Author
Psychologist
Writer
the United States of America
States
Hearts
Even
Ordinary
Accomplishments
Heart
Ways
Unimportant
Way
Happy
Exalted
Life
Spiritual
Exceptional
Given
Accomplishment
Another
Basic
Cannot
Touch

More quotes by 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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What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation...we must follow what brings us alive.
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Wherever you are is the perfect place to awaken. This moment is the exact place to practice compassion and loving awareness. You have all the ingredients to breathe and find freedom just where you are.
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Taking the one seat describes two related aspects of spiritual work. Outwardly, it means selecting one practice and teacher among all the possibilities, and inwardly, it means having the determination to stick with that practice through whatever difficulties and doubts arise until you have come to true clarity and understanding.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
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.
Jack Kornfield
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True love is not for the faint-hearted.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
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Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.
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It is not enough to know that love and forgiveness are possible. We have to find ways to bring them to life.
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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
Jack Kornfield
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The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind.
Jack Kornfield
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Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.
Jack Kornfield
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Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.
Jack Kornfield
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The present moment is really all that we have. The only place you can really love another person is in the present. Love in the past is a memory. Love in the future is a fantasy. To be really alive, love - or any other experience - must take place in the present.
Jack Kornfield
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Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are.
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.
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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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.
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