A Path with Heart Quotes

“The focusing of attention on the breath is perhaps the most universal of the many hundreds of meditation subjects used worldwide.”
― 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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but organically, through understanding an gradual training.”
― 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.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The wars between peoples are a reflection of our own inner conflict and fear.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“War’s roots are in ignorance.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“True enlightenment and wholeness arise when we are without anxiety about nonperfection.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“An integrated sense of spirituality understands that if we are to bring light or wisdom or compassion into the world, we must first begin with ourselves. The universal truths of spiritual life can come alive only in each particular and personal circumstance.”
― 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. 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

“If we act without a connection to the heart, even the greatest things in our life can become dried up, meaningless, or barren.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Painful desire involves greed, grasping, inadequacy, and longing. Skillful desire is born of this same Will to Do but directed by love, vitality, compassion, creativity, and wisdom.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When the conditions of deficiency and wounding are still not healed, we have a very hard time knowing what it feels like to give in a genuine way. Because our inner experience is still one of need, giving is usually done with a subtle expectation of getting in return.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“To live with great wisdom and compassion is possible for anyone who genuinely undertakes a training of their heart and mind. What better thing to do with our life?”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When a bell rings, is it the bell we hear, the air, the sound at our ears, or is it our brain that rings? It is all of these things. As the Taoists say, “The between is ringing.” The sound of the bell is here to be heard everywhere—in the eyes of every person we meet, in every tree and insect, in every breath we take.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“If we had been seeking strength through control over ourselves and others, we discover that was only a false version of strength, that truth and inherent strength appear in moments of deep silence and wholeness when we rest unshakably with things as they are. If we had been seeking beauty or love through others or in states that perfect our mind, this too comes whole and unbidden when desires and longings themselves come to rest. This is awakening to our Buddha nature.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Religion and philosophy have their value, but in the end all we can do is open to mystery and live a path with heart, not idealistically, not without difficulties, but as a Buddha did, in the very midst of our humanness in our life on this earth. It is worth asking ourselves: What is it that we can see and know directly for ourselves? Are these simple truths not enough?”
― 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

“You may have heard of “out-of-the-body experiences,” full of lights and visions. A true spiritual path demands something more challenging, what could be called an “in-the-body experience.” We must connect to our body, to our feelings, to our life just now, if we are to awaken.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“To stop the war, we need to begin with ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi understood this when he said: I have only three enemies. My favorite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire. My second enemy the Indian people, is far more difficult. But my most formidable opponent is a man named Mohandas K. Gandhi. With him I seem to have very little influence.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Bring yourself back to the point quite gently. And even if you do nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back a thousand times, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“There is a vitality, a life force that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When the awareness is clear and focused, even the repeated movement of the in- and out-breath can be a most wonderful experience.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“The attitude or spirit with which we do our meditation helps us perhaps more than any other aspect. What is called for is a sense of perseverance and dedication combined with a basic friendliness.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“We grieve for our past traumas and present fears, for all of the feelings we never dared experience consciously.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When we live in our thoughts of the past and future, everything seems distant, hurried, or unfulfilled.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“everything is intertwined in a continuous movement, arising in certain forms that we call bodies or thoughts or feelings, and then dissolving or changing into new forms.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“Just something else to let go of.”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

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

“A modern story of Mullah Nasrudin, the Sufi teacher and holy fool, tells of him entering a bank and trying to cash a check. The teller asks him to please identify himself. Nasrudin reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small mirror. Looking into it, he says, “Yep, that’s me all right.” Meditation”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“When sleepy, meditate with your eyes open wide. Stand in place for a few minutes or do walking meditation. If it’s really bad, walk briskly or walk backward, splash some water on your face. Sleepiness is something we can respond to creatively. When”
― Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life