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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.

Jack Kornfield

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

More quotes by 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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...Spiritual opening is not a withdrawal to some imagined realm or safe cave. It is not a pulling away, but a touching of all the experience of life with wisdom and with a heart of kindness, without any separation.
Jack Kornfield
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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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The trouble is that you think you have time.
Jack Kornfield
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Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.
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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No one knows how this world came into being. It is a creation of consciousness itself. It's extraordinary, a mystery.
Jack Kornfield
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Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim—arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object.
Jack Kornfield
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Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.
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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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.
Jack Kornfield
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We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.
Jack Kornfield
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There are several different kinds of painful feelings that we might experience, and learning to distinguish and relate to these feelings of discomfort or pain is an important part of meditation practice, because it is one of the very first things that we open to as our practice develops.
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.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
Jack Kornfield
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Yes, there are troubles in the world. There's war and hatred, there's sickness and difficulty. And there is also an undying spirit, an inviolable consciousness that is born in each of us. It is who we are, and it's everything and it's nothing.
Jack Kornfield
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Through practice, gently and gradually we can collect ourselves and learn how to be more fully with what we do.
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.
Jack Kornfield
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We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?
Jack Kornfield
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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.
Jack Kornfield