Quotes from Jack Kornfield

If we gain something, it was there from    the beginning. If we lose anything, it is hidden nearby.

To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully.

The suffering and happiness in our world, both individual and collective, depend on our consciousness.

The adult brain and nervous system grow and change throughout our lives. Until the very end, we are neurologically transformed by whatever we practice. We are not limited by the past.

Our life is shaped and determined by our thoughts. Usually we are only half conscious of the way thoughts direct our life; we are lost in thoughts as if they are reality. We take our own mental creations quite seriously, endorsing them without reservation.

The problem with the "wanting mind" is that even if you get what you think you want, it does not stop. It says, "All right, I have got the nice car, but now I need more money." It is always something that we do not have in the present moment—something that we want to obtain in order to satisfy our longing.

We need to learn how to honor and use a practice for as long as it serves us—which in most cases is a very long time—but to look at it as just that, a vehicle, a raft to help us cross through the waters of doubt, confusion, desire, and fear.

To live in this precious animal body on this earth is as great a part of spiritual life as anything else.

True love and prayer are learned in the hour when love becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone.

Through practice, gently and gradually we can collect ourselves and learn how to be more fully with what we do.

With mindfulness, we are learning to observe in a new way, with balance and a powerful disidentification.

Acceptance is not passivity. It is a courageous step in the process of transformation.

The warrior in your heart says stand your ground. Feel the survival of a thousand years of ancestors in your muscles and your blood. You have all the support you need in your bones.

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

Meditation is not a process of getting rid of something, but one of opening and understanding. When

The root of the problem is that everyone has to first discover the root of anger and hatred inside themselves before they can understand how it operates in the outside world.

For instance, the near enemy of love is attachment. It masquerades as love, it feels like love, but it is essentially different.

human freedom must come from practicing a life of inner and outer balance, and he called this discovery the Middle Path.

Feel your own precious body and life. Let yourself see the way you have hurt or harmed yourself. Picture them, remember them. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this and sense that you can release these burdens. Extend forgiveness for each of them, one by one.

There is a palpable relief when I teach the perspective of nobility, of training in compassion, of non-religious ways to transform suffering and nurture our sacred connection to life.

You can pick all the flowers but you can't stop the spring. —PABLO NERUDA

We are taught in this culture that if we can grasp enough pleasurable experiences quickly, one after another, our life will be happy. By following a good game of tennis with a delicious dinner, a fine movie, then wonderful sex and sleep, a good morning jog, a fine hour of meditation, an excellent breakfast, and off to an exciting morning of work, over and over, our happiness will last. Our driven society is masterful at perpetuating this ruse. But will this satisfy the heart?

Because love, compassion, and joy can lead to excessive attachment, their warmth needs to be balanced with equanimity. Because equanimity can lead to excessive detachment, its coolness needs to be balanced with love, compassion, and joy. Established together, these radiant qualities express mental harmony.

the midst of these forces with his heart open and his mind clear until he could see to the depths of human consciousness, until he discovered a place of peace at the center of them all. This was his enlightenment, the discovery of nirvana, the freeing of his heart from entanglement in all the conditions of the world.