Quotes from Jack Kornfield

Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.

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

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

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.

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

Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

Those who are Awake live in a state of constant amazement.

When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.

All of spiritual practice is a matter of relationship: to ourselves, to others, to life's situations.

What would we have to hold in compassion to be at peace right now? What would we have to let go of to be at peace right now?

An honorable spiritual practice recognizes the losses we have suffered, tells our story, and sheds our tears to free us from the past.

We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy—material or spiritual.

When repeated difficulties do arise, our first spiritual approach is to acknowledge what is present, naming, softly saying 'sadness, sadness', or 'remembering, remembering', or whatever.

Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?

There is beauty to be found in the changing of the earth's seasons, and an inner grace in honouring the cycles of life.

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

According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the "quivering of the pure heart" when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.

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.

To see the preciousness of all things, we must bring our full attention to life

To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.

Whatever we cultivate in times of ease, we gather as strength for times of change.

Great spiritual traditions are used as a means to ripen us, to bring us face to face with our life, and to help us to see in a new way by developing a stillness of mind and a strength of heart.

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

To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.