Jack Kornfield Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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.

  235 Copy quote

• 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

  188 Copy quote

• To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.

  Jack Kornfield

  Letting Go, Hate, Mean

  Twitter post from Feb 12, 2015

  3 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

  172 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

  122 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

  56 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

  120 Copy quote

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

  Jack Kornfield

  Motivational, Buddhist, Yoga

  Twitter post from Jan 31, 2015

  135 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

  70 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

  100 Copy quote

• No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today.

  Jack Kornfield

  Inspirational, Buddhist, Past

  6 Copy quote

• The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

  Jack Kornfield

  Miracle, Way To Live, Accepting

  Jack Kornfield (2017). “No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

  4 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

  27 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

  87 Copy quote

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

  Jack Kornfield

  Surf, Wave

  44 Copy quote

• Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

  Jack Kornfield

  Spiritual, Acceptance, Self

  Twitter post from Dec 11, 2014

  4 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

  82 Copy quote

• 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

  Letting Go, Grief, Heart

  Jack Kornfield (2008). “The Wise Heart: Buddhist Psychology for the West”, p.135, Random House

  2 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

  111 Copy quote

• 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

  Wisdom, Reality, Loving Yourself

  6 Copy quote

• Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?

  Jack Kornfield

  Kindness, Kind, Life Is

  Twitter post from Oct 09, 2015

  21 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

  31 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

  60 Copy quote

• The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

  Jack Kornfield

  Wise, Spiritual, And Love

  Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.71, Random House

  49 Copy quote

• Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his students asked about this, he replied, "I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.

  Jack Kornfield

  Simple, Simplicity, Students

  20 Copy quote

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