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Jack Kornfield Quotes

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Jack Kornfield is an American author and meditation teacher, born in 1945. His works mainly focus on Buddhist meditation and spiritual growth, which have won him a wide audience.

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All Heart Spiritual Way Practice Compassion Suffering World Ifs Letting Go Mind Moments Our Lives Meditation Pain Understanding Needs Doe Buddhism Matter Past

Famous Jack Kornfield Quotes

“In any moment we can learn to let go of hatred and fear. We can rest in peace, love, and forgiveness. It is never too late. Yet to sustain love we need to develop practices that cultivate and strengthen the natural compassion within us.”

Needs Moments Natural Compassion Practice Letting Go Late Hatred Too Late Never Too Late Rest In Peace Peace Love Love And Forgiveness Learn To Let Go

Author:Jack Kornfield

“The near enemy of love is attachment. Attachment masquerades as love. It says, “I will love this person because I need them.” Or, “I’ll love you if you’ll love me back. I’ll love you, but only if you will be the way I want.” This isn’t love at all - it is attachment - and attachment is rigid, it is very different from love.”

Ifs Way Want Needs Persons Different Love Is Enemy Love You Attachment Masquerade

Book:Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

Source: Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

“We can bring a heart of understanding and compassion to a world that needs it so much.”

World Needs Heart Understanding Compassion Understanding And Compassion

Book:Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

Source: Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are

“It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can't close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart.”

Needs Heart Long Night Flower Seasons Rhythm Sunlight Respectful True Nature Open Heart Be Respectful

Author:Jack Kornfield

“We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing.”

Way Needs Mind Suffering Order Seeing Buddhism Habit Discipline Letting Go Training Genuine New Ways Habits Of Mind Old Habits

Author:Jack Kornfield

“We each need to make our lion's roar - to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears - to declare our right to awaken.”

Needs Suffering Doubt Buddhism Sorrow Lions Persevere Unshakable

Author:Jack Kornfield

“We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.”

Needs Heart Pain Faces Joy Our Lives Possibility Warrior Limitation Warrior Spirit

Author:Jack Kornfield

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

Needs Kind Spiritual Spirit Genuine Warrior Openness Spiritual Life Warrior Spirit

Author:Jack Kornfield

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

Needs Philosophy Running Spiritual Energy Our Lives Materials Commitment Over It Warrior Spirit

Author:Jack Kornfield

“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.”

Needs Looks Long Helping Use Desire Water Practice Cases Doubt Honor Long Time Crosses Confusion Vehicle

Author:Jack Kornfield

“When attachment arises in the place of love, it sees the other as separate; it grasps and needs. Attachment is conditional; it seeks control and it fear loss. Ask your heart if attachment has replaced love. If we speak to our heart, it will always tell us the truth.”

Ifs Needs Heart Asks Speak Loss Arise Attachment Replaced Conditional

Author:Jack Kornfield

“Acceptance does not mean inaction. We may need to respond, strongly at times...From a peaceful center we can respond instead of react. Unconscious reactions create problems. Considered responses bring peace. With a peaceful heart whatever happens can be met with wisdom...Peace is not weak; it is unshakable.”

Needs Heart May Mean Doe Problem Happens Acceptance Mets Weak Response Reactions Peaceful Unconscious Inaction Whatever Happens Unshakable Peaceful Heart

Author:Jack Kornfield

“Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be.”

Needs Feels Accepting Struggle Letting Go Trauma Acknowledge Aversion

Author:Jack Kornfield

“Everybody needs to take some time, in some way, to quiet themselves and really listen to their heart.”

Way Needs Heart Quiet

Author:Jack Kornfield

“We need courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy-mate rial or spiritual. We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.”

Needs Heart Kind Philosophy Running Pain Faces Spiritual Joy Spirit Energy Our Lives Possibility Commitment Warrior Limitation Over It Mates Warrior Spirit

Author:Jack Kornfield

“You need a community. They remind you when you forget, and you remind them when they forget.”

Needs Community Forget

Author: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.”