Quotes from Sharon Salzberg

Vulnerability should be the thing that brings us closer than anything because we all share that.

TO RETEACH A THING its loveliness" is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone and everything can flower again from within. When we recover knowledge of our own loveliness and that of others, self-blessing happens naturally and beautifully.

When we open our hearts to the breadth of our experiences, we learn to tune into our needs, unique perceptions, thoughts & feelings

Mindfulness allows us to shift the angle on our story and to remember that we have the capacity to learn and change in ways that are productive, not self-defeating.

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, A cool breeze in summer, snow in winter— If your mind is not clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.

Continuous Partial Attention involves an artificial sense of constant crisis, of living in a 24/7, always-on world. It contributes to feeling stressed, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and unfulfilled; it compromises our ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively." Not

Mindfulness practice helps create space between our actual experiences and the reflexive stories we tend to tell about them.

Integration arises from intimacy with our emotions and our bodies, as well as with our thoughts.

The mind is like the ocean ... no matter what the surface conditions are like, whether it's smooth or choppy ... deep in the ocean it's tranquil and serene. From the depth of the ocean, you can look toward the surface and simply notice the activities there, just as from the depth of the mind you can look upward toward ... all that activity of mind—the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories.

Loving kindness practice helps us move out of the terrain of our default narratives if they tend to be based on fear or disconnection. We become authors of brand-new stories about love.

Never feel ashamed of your longing for happiness.

carrying on a conversation at dinner and texting under the table.... Continuous Partial Attention involves an artificial sense of constant crisis, of living in a 24/7, always-on world. It contributes to feeling stressed, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and unfulfilled; it compromises our ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively.

There's no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others.

it's human nature to want to seize control when the people we love are suffering. But trying to impose our personal agenda on someone else's experience is the shadow side of love, while real love recognizes that life unfolds at its own pace.

Perfection is fragile; interacting with something that seems perfect puts it in peril.

If we stretch ourselves to open our minds, to see our shared humanity with others, we allow ourselves to see the existence of community and generosity in unexpected places.

Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.

Everyone Can Play is now the precept I live by. We may not agree with one another. We may argue. We may compete. But everybody gets to play, no matter what. We all deserve a shot at life.

May the actions that I take toward the good, toward understanding myself, toward being more peaceful be of benefit to all beings everywhere. And

When emotions are long held and extremely complex, it sometimes takes years for them to enter fully into awareness.

Though it may seem counter intuitive to our inner perfectionist, recognizing our mistakes as valuable lessons (not failures) helps us lay the groundwork for later success.

When we truly allow ourselves to feel our own pain, over time it comes to seem less personal. We start to recognize that what we've perceived as our pain is, at a deeper level, the pain inherent in human existence.

The wholesome pursuit of excellence feels quite different from perfectionism.

Not paying attention keeps us in an endless cycle of wanting.