Jack Kornfield Quotes

123 Sourced Quotes

Forgiveness does not mean that we have to continue to relate to those who have done us harm. In some cases the best practice may be to end our connection, to never speak to or be with a harmful person again. Sometimes in the process of forgiveness a person who hurts or betrayed us may wish to make amends, but even this does not require us to put ourselves in the way of further harm.

Jack Kornfield
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
The longing for initiation is universal and for modern youth, it is a desperate need. When nothing is offered in the way of spiritual initiation to prove one's entry into the world of men and women, initiation happens instead in the road or the street, in cars at high speed, with drugs, with dangerous sex, with weapons. However troubling, this behavior is rooted in a fundamental truth; a need to grow.

Jack Kornfield
Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.

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

Jack Kornfield
Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was Young. And my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.

Jack Kornfield
A factor that greatly supports the opening of energy in practice is exercise and care of the physical body.

Jack Kornfield
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
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
We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred.

Jack Kornfield
The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.

Jack Kornfield
We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything.

Jack Kornfield
The independence and rebelliousness of our adolescence offer us yet another quality essential to our practice; the insistence that we find out the truth for ourselves, accepting no one's word above our own experience.

Jack Kornfield
Your happiness and suffering depend on your actions and not on my wishes for you.

Jack Kornfield
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
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
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
This life is a test-it is only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do. Remember, this life is only a test.

Jack Kornfield
We need a warrior's heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

Jack Kornfield
Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart

Jack Kornfield
To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.

Jack Kornfield
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
Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.

Jack Kornfield
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
When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.

Jack Kornfield
Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears.

Jack Kornfield
In deep self-acceptance grows a compassionate understanding. As one Zen master said when I asked if he ever gets angry, 'Of course I get angry, but then a few minutes later I say to myself, 'What's the use of this,' and I let it go.'

Jack Kornfield
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
The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation.

Jack Kornfield