A Path with Heart Quotes

“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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual 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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“True emptiness is not empty, but contains all things. The mysterious and pregnant void creates and reflects all possibilities. From it arises our individuality, which can be discovered and developed, although never possessed or fixed.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“As the Buddha said, “People with opinions just go around bothering one another.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“In our charade with ourselves we pretend that our war is not really war. We have changed the name of the War Department to the Defense Department and call a whole class of nuclear missiles Peace Keepers!”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life’s fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“As we follow a genuine path of practice, our sufferings may seem to increase because we no longer hide from them or from ourselves. When we do not follow the old habits of fantasy and escape, we are left facing the actual problems and contradictions of our life.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“We are rarely lazy—we are simply afraid.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“There are many ways up the mountain and each of us must choose a practice that feels true to our heart.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy—material or spiritual.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The way I treat my body is not disconnected from the way I treat my family or the commitment I have to peace on our earth.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When we ask it about our current path, we must look at the values we have chosen to live by. Where do we put our time, our strength, our creativity, our love? We must look at our life without sentimentality, exaggeration, or idealism. Does what we are choosing reflect what we most deeply value?”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“ESTABLISHING A DAILY MEDITATION First select a suitable space for your regular meditation. It can be wherever you can sit easily with minimal disturbance: a corner of your bedroom or any other quiet spot in your home. Place a meditation cushion or chair there for your use. Arrange what is around so that you are reminded of your meditative purpose, so that it feels like a sacred and peaceful space. You may wish to make a simple altar with a flower or sacred image, or place your favorite spiritual books there for a few moments of inspiring reading. Let yourself enjoy creating this space for yourself. Then select a regular time for practice that suits your schedule and temperament. If you are a morning person, experiment with a sitting before breakfast. If evening fits your temperament or schedule better, try that first. Begin with sitting ten or twenty minutes at a time. Later you can sit longer or more frequently. Daily meditation can become like bathing or toothbrushing. It can bring a regular cleansing and calming to your heart and mind. Find a posture on the chair or cushion in which you can easily sit erect without being rigid. Let your body be firmly planted on the earth, your hands resting easily, your heart soft, your eyes closed gently. At first feel your body and consciously soften any obvious tension. Let go of any habitual thoughts or plans. Bring your attention to feel the sensations of your breathing. Take a few deep breaths to sense where you can feel the breath most easily, as coolness or tingling in the nostrils or throat, as movement of the chest, or rise and fall of the belly. Then let your breath be natural. Feel the sensations of your natural breathing very carefully, relaxing into each breath as you feel it, noticing how the soft sensations of breathing come and go with the changing breath. After a few breaths your mind will probably wander. When you notice this, no matter how long or short a time you have been away, simply come back to the next breath. Before you return, you can mindfully acknowledge where you have gone with a soft word in the back of your mind, such as “thinking,” “wandering,” “hearing,” “itching.” After softly and silently naming to yourself where your attention has been, gently and directly return to feel the next breath. Later on in your meditation you will be able to work with the places your mind wanders to, but for initial training, one word of acknowledgment and a simple return to the breath is best. As you sit, let the breath change rhythms naturally, allowing it to be short, long, fast, slow, rough, or easy. Calm yourself by relaxing into the breath. When your breath becomes soft, let your attention become gentle and careful, as soft as the breath itself. Like training a puppy, gently bring yourself back a thousand times. Over weeks and months of this practice you will gradually learn to calm and center yourself using the breath. There will be many cycles in this process, stormy days alternating with clear days. Just stay with it. As you do, listening deeply, you will find the breath helping to connect and quiet your whole body and mind. Working with the breath is an excellent foundation for the other meditations presented in this book. After developing some calm and skills, and connecting with your breath, you can then extend your range of meditation to include healing and awareness of all the levels of your body and mind. You will discover how awareness of your breath can serve as a steady basis for all you do.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“One famous Zen master actually described spiritual practice as “one mistake after another,” which is to say, one opportunity after another to learn. It is from “difficulties, mistakes, and errors” that we actually learn. To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others—we are at ease with the difficulties of life.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life

“When we let ourselves feel the fear, the discontent, the difficulties we have always avoided, our heart softens. Just as it is a courageous act to face all the difficulties from which we have always run, it is also an act of compassion.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Picture or imagine that this earth is filled with Buddhas, that every single being you encounter is enlightened, except one—yourself! Imagine that they are all here to teach you. Whoever you encounter is acting as they do solely for your benefit, to provide just the teachings and difficulties you need in order to awaken. Sense what lessons they offer to you. Inwardly thank them for this. Throughout a day or a week continue to develop the image of enlightened teachers all around you. Notice how it changes your whole perspective on life.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life

“If we gain something, it was there from    the beginning. If we lose anything, it is hidden nearby.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“To live in this precious animal body on this earth is as great a part of spiritual life as anything else.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The place where we can most directly open to the mystery of life is in what we don’t do well, in the places of our struggles and vulnerability. These places always require surrender and letting go: When we let ourselves become vulnerable, new things can be born in us. In risking the unknown we gain a sense of life itself. And most remarkably, that which we have sought is often just here, buried under the problem and the weakness itself.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life