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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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Expressing gratitude to our benefactors is a natural form of love. In fact, some people find loving kindness for themselves so hard, they begin their practice with a benefactor. This too is fine. The rule in loving kindness practice is to follow the way that most easily opens your heart.
Jack Kornfield
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Skill in concentrating and steadying the mind is the basis for all types of meditation.
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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Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.
Jack Kornfield
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Where we tended to be judgmental, we became more judgmental of ourselves in our spiritual practice.
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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There are no holy places and no holy people, only holy moments, only moments of wisdom.
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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Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.
Jack Kornfield
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True love is not for the faint-hearted.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
Jack Kornfield
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At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?
Jack Kornfield
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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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Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings.
Jack Kornfield
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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.
Jack Kornfield
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To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully.
Jack Kornfield
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The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.
Jack Kornfield
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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
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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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The grief we carry is part of the grief of the world. Hold it gently. Let it be honored. You do not have to keep it in anymore. You can let go into the heart of compassion you can weep.
Jack Kornfield