A Path with Heart Quotes

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

“All other spiritual teachings are in vain if we cannot love. Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if, with our hearts, we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Meditation is not a process of getting rid of something, but one of opening and understanding. When”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The seeds of wisdom, peace, and wholeness are within each of our difficulties. Our awakening is possible in every activity. At first we may sense this truth only tentatively. With practice it becomes living reality. Our spiritual life can open a dimension of our being where each person we meet can teach us like the Buddha and whatever we touch becomes gold. To do this we must make our very difficulties the place of our practice. Then our life becomes not a struggle with success and failure but a dance of the heart. It is up to us. Once”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love. With”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“To protect the separate self, we push certain things away, while to bolster it we hold on to other things and identify with them. A”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Accumulated knots in the fabric of our body, previously undetected, begin to reveal themselves as we open.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” Some”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“We note feelings and find that they last for only a few seconds. We pay attention to thoughts and find that they are ephemeral, that they come and go, uninvited, like clouds.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires and anger, and to learn directly our capacity for freedom.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The things we do well, where we have developed our greatest self-confidence, can become habitual, bringing a sense of false security. They are not where our spiritual life will best open. If it is our strength to think through things carefully, then thoughts will not be our best spiritual teacher. If it is already our way to follow our strong feelings, then feelings are not where we will learn best. 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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Even Napoleon Bonaparte understood this when, at the end of his life, he stated, “Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Let me end this chapter with an encouraging story. A young man found his way up to the small apartment of Nisargadatta, my old Hindu guru in Bombay, asked him a spiritual question and then left after this one question. One of the regular students then asked, “What will happen to this man? Will he ever become enlightened or will he fall off the path and go back to sleep?” Nisargadatta said, “It’s too late for him! He has already begun. Just the fact that he came up here and asked one question about what is his true nature means that that place in him that knows who he really is has started to wake up. Even if it takes a long, long time, there’s no turning back.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Almost always the roots of anger are in one of two difficult states, which arise just before the anger appears. We become angry either when we are hurt and in pain or when we are afraid. Pay attention to your own life and see if this is true. The next time anger and irritation spring up, see if just before they arose you felt fear or hurt. If you pay attention to the fear or pain first, does the anger even appear? Anger”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The problem with desire is that you do not desire deeply enough! Why not desire it all? You don’t like what you have and want what you don’t have. Simply reverse this. Want what you have and don’t want what you don’t have. Here you will find true fulfillment.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Our difficulties require our most compassionate attention. Just as lead can be transformed into gold in alchemy, when we place our leaden difficulties, whether of body, heart, or mind, into the center of our practice, they can become lightened for us, illuminated. This task is usually not what we want, but what we have to do. No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way. The”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“There are two kinds of difficulties. Some are clearly problems to solve, situations that call for compassionate action and direct response. Many more are problems we create for ourselves by struggling to make life different than it is or by becoming so caught up in our own point of view that we lose sight of a larger, wiser perspective. Usually”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“In this way, our life may appear as a series of mistakes. One could call them “problems” or “challenges,” but in some ways “mistakes” is better. 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. But”
― 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. A”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“As we become more skillful we also discover that concentration has its own seasons. Sometimes we sit and settle easily. At other times the conditions of mind and body are turbulent or tense. We can learn to navigate all these waters. When conditions show the mind is tight, we learn to soften and relax, to open the attention. When the mind is sleepy or flabby, we learn to sit up and focus with more energy. The Buddha compared this with the tuning of a lute, sensing when we are out of tune and gently strengthening or loosening our energy to come into balance. In”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“sorrow or a wound can heal, allowing us to grow into our fullest, most compassionate identity, our greatness of heart. When we truly come to terms with sorrow, a great and unshakable joy is born in our heart. HEALING”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“In truly listening to our most painful songs, we can learn the divine art of forgiveness.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“most often the kinds of pains we encounter in meditative attention are not indications of physical problems. They are the painful, physical manifestations of our emotional, psychological, and spiritual holdings and contractions.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds. As Achaan Chah put it, “If you haven’t cried a number of times, your meditation hasn’t really begun.” A”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Genuine spiritual practice requires us to learn how to stop the war. This is a first step, but actually it must be practiced over and over until it becomes our way of being. The inner stillness of a person who truly “is peace” brings peace to the whole interconnected web of life, both inner and outer. To stop the war, we need to begin with ourselves.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Letting go is a central theme in spiritual practice, as we see the preciousness and brevity of life. When letting go is called for, if we have not learned to do so, we suffer greatly, and when we get to the end of our life, we may have what is called a crash course. Sooner or later we have to learn to let go and allow the changing mystery of life to move through us without our fearing it, without holding and grasping. I”
― 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. 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—material or spiritual. We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities. This courage allows us to include every aspect of life in our spiritual practice: our bodies, our families, our society, politics, the earth’s ecology, art, education. Only then can spirituality be truly integrated into our lives.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life