Jack Kornfield Quotes

Quotes about:

• No amount of outer technology, no amount of computers and biotechnology and nanotechnology is going to stop the continuation of warfare and racism and environmental destruction. What's called for on the Earth at this time is really a change of heart ... the question is really not the future of humanity, but the presence of eternity.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Technology, Racism

  185 Copy quote

• If you can sit quietly after difficult news; if in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm; if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy; if you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate; you can fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill; if you can always find contentment just where you are: you are probably a dog.

  Jack Kornfield

  Running, Dog, Fall

  "A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times". Book by Jack Kornfield, www.lionsroar.com. 2011.

  232 Copy quote

• The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

  Jack Kornfield

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Fear

  Twitter post from Oct 07, 2015

  163 Copy quote

• Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.

  Jack Kornfield

  Children, Suffering, Wish

  117 Copy quote

• Whatever your difficulties - a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness - you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do - despite your circumstances - are to be present and to be willing to love.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Loss, Two

  Jack Kornfield (2014). “A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times”, p.59, Sounds True

  118 Copy quote

• In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Cheer Up, Mindfulness

  Twitter post from Feb 03, 2015

  54 Copy quote

• If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

  Jack Kornfield

  Motivational, Buddhist, Yoga

  Twitter post from Jan 31, 2015

  124 Copy quote

• The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.

  Jack Kornfield

  Yoga, Matter, Moments

  Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.14, Random House

  110 Copy quote

• 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

  Memories, Past, Alive

  84 Copy quote

• Acceptance does not mean inaction. We may need to respond, strongly at times...From a peaceful center we can respond instead of react. Unconscious reactions create problems. Considered responses bring peace. With a peaceful heart whatever happens can be met with wisdom...Peace is not weak; it is unshakable.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Mean, Acceptance

  81 Copy quote

• We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Block, Heart

  69 Copy quote

• Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

  Jack Kornfield

  Regret, War, Ambition

  98 Copy quote

• The waves do keep coming, so learn to surf.

  Jack Kornfield

  Surf, Wave

  43 Copy quote

• I used to think that to become free you had to practice like a samurai warrior, but now I understand that you have to practice like a devoted mother of a newborn child. It takes the same energy but has a completely different quality. It's compassion and presence rather than having to defeat the enemy in battle.

  Jack Kornfield

  Mother, Children, Warrior

  30 Copy quote

• 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

  Compassion, Giving, Hatred

  40 Copy quote

• May I be given the appropriate difficulties so that my heart can truly open with compassion. Imagine asking for that.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Compassion, Asking

  "Jack Kornfield on Gratitude and Mindfulness". greatergood.berkeley.edu. May 19, 2014.

  18 Copy quote

• Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Struggle, Needs

  25 Copy quote

• May you know the beauty of your own true nature.

  Jack Kornfield

  May, Knows, True Nature

  22 Copy quote

• At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?

  Jack Kornfield

  Love, Inspirational, Death

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  Compassion, Practice, Perfect

  21 Copy quote

• Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Heart, Fighting

  49 Copy quote

• Once we see that everything is impermanent and ungraspable and that we create a huge amount of suffering if we are attached to things staying the same, we realize that relaxing and letting go is a wiser way to live. Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Wise, Mean

  56 Copy quote

• Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

  Jack Kornfield

  Compassion, Juju, Respect Yourself

  Jack Kornfield (2014). “A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times”, p.27, Sounds True

  54 Copy quote

• Forgiveness sees wisely. It willingly acknowledges what is unjust, harmful, and wrong. It bravely recognizes sufferings of the past, and understands the conditions that brought them about.Forgiveness honors the heart's greatest dignity. Whenever we are lost, it brings us back to the ground of love.Without forgiveness our lives are chained, forced to carry the sufferings of the past and repeat them with no release.

  Jack Kornfield

  Heart, Past, Honor

  55 Copy quote

• In spiritual life there is no room for compromise. Awakening is not negotiable; we cannot bargain to hold on to things that please us while relinquishing things that do not matter to us. A lukewarm yearning for awakening is not enough to sustain us through the difficulties involved in letting go. It is important to understand that anything that can be lost was never truly ours, anything that we deeply cling to only imprisons us.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Spiritual, Important

  77 Copy quote

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