Quotes from Jack Kornfield

In the crystal of the awakened consciousness, one facet is love.

It is not enough to know that love and forgiveness are possible. We have to find ways to bring them to life.

The light around someone who speaks truth, who consistently acts with compassion for all, even in great difficulty, is visible to all around them.

In this world there are two great sources of strength. One rests with those who are not afraid to kill. The other rests with those who are not afraid to love.

True love is not for the faint-hearted.

Use whatever has come to awaken patience, understanding, and love.

Buddhism talks about the possibility of transforming greed, hatred, and delusion. But sometimes need turns into greed.

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.

In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?

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

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

The trouble is, you think you have time.

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.

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.

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.

You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.

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.

When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another - and ourselves.

As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home.

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.

As we encounter new experiences with a mindful and wise attention, we discover that one of three things will happen to our new experience: it will go away, it will stay the same, or it will get more intense. whatever happens does not really matter.

When we let go of our battles and open our heart to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice. Only in this moment can we discover that which is timeless. Only here can we find the love that we seek. Love in the past is simply memory, and love in the future is fantasy. 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.

The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.

When the stories of our life no longer bind us, we discover within them something greater. We discover that within the very limitations of form, of our maleness and femaleness, of our parenthood and our childhood, of gravity on the earth and the changing of the seasons, is the freedom and harmony we have sought for so long. Our individual life is an expression of the whole mystery, and in it we can rest in the center of the movement, the center of all worlds.