Real Life Quotes

“We take that step in the darkness because of an inkling, perhaps faint, uncertain, but alive. We feel inspired. Or perhaps we simply feel tired of being confined.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“Our tendency to cling to the stuff of this world pushes us to drag our things—physical possessions, emotional baggage, old assumptions, and habitual reactions—through every transition. It is hard to contemplate letting go, let alone letting go of absolutely everything, as we cross the street of mortality. No wonder we think of change as the enemy!”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“THAT’S ANOTHER meaning of the word dharma: actualizing that potential for freedom we all have, shedding the stories others have told about us to discover who we genuinely are, understanding what we care about most deeply, what makes for a better life. Dharma is not something we are fated to, or stoic about, but the very set of practices that can lift us out of our conditioning, out of an assumed set of limits and away from what is often a pervasive resignation. We can see for ourselves the elements of life that sustain us, bring us closer and closer to the truth of how things are.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“Expansiveness helps broaden our perspective, so we can think more flexibly and with a more open mind. We become better able to focus on the big picture and not feel so discouraged by the constant array of ups and downs we experience every day. When faced with adversity, we can generate more solutions. Expansiveness invites experimentation and imagination. We’re more willing to pour ourselves fully into life’s pursuits. It is the freedom of letting down the burden we have been carrying. It leaves room for our fundamentally loving hearts to uncoil, and lead us onward.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“Because of many factors, including previous traumatic experience, we might be easily activated by the ropes littered throughout our lives, mistaking each for a source of the highest danger. When that’s the case, we rarely feel safe.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“THE QUALITY of our lives can be limited by the thought patterns that produce much of our constriction, such as unexamined assumptions. Sometimes—perhaps most of the time—we don’t even notice the ideas we hold about ourselves, our experiences, our friends, family, and so on. We tend to accept our preconceptions, judgments, hasty conclusions, and anxieties about the world as truth: ultimate, unyielding, inflexible. Our world shrinks, becoming ever smaller and smaller.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“But if it becomes chronic, we begin living more and more in a world of tunnel vision, of auditory exclusion, of distorted perception, of narrowed interests, of joy that is right here in front of us that we miss simply because we don’t see it. Our perception of options, of possibility, of aliveness, fades. We suffer.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“Our attachments to whom we think we’re supposed to be are like chains around our necks. Our identities get wrapped up in the external roles, titles, and accomplishments that we put value on … A wealthy businessman values how much he’s worth financially. A research scientist values the cure she is working on. A writer values the books he writes and publishes. In my case, I valued how much social change I could create through my advocacy for women’s rights and my humanitarian work. At first, it might seem that one pursuit or identity is more valuable than another. Surely, the cure for a disease is more important than how many books an author sells. Surely, creating social change that improves thousands—if not millions—of lives is more important than increasing the wealth of one individual. At a fundamental level, though, no matter what our vocation is, our accomplishments are where we find our core self-value and feel affirmed. Attachments are attachments, I realized, no matter who we are or what we identify with. When we value ourselves because of what we accomplish and how much we accomplish, our souls are forever held hostage to these attachments. No matter how much we do, how many dollars we accumulate, cures we discover, books we sell, or people we help, it is never going to be enough to permanently fulfill us.… I was completely identified with my work, and in my own mind, I could never be successful enough at it. That was a very big chain around my soul, a huge weight on my being. Realizing this was like cutting the umbilical cord to my shame.… One short silent retreat couldn’t instantly change the shape of my life—or my mind. It had just given me a taste of what freedom from attachments could be like. It was like tasting chocolate for the first time: we can’t describe how good it tastes until we’ve actually tasted it, and then we can’t ever forget that taste. Now that I had seen the source of my pain and the route to my freedom, I had a clear path to follow. As Zainab’s story so powerfully illustrates, we can learn to recognize assumptions for the thoughts that they are, rather than cleaving to them as an ultimate defining reality we’re bound to. We get to choose, “Do I want to take this to heart or let it go?” EXPANSION”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom

“Enough is a feast." If you are terrified, if you feel impoverished within, if you feel perpetually humiliated, enough will never seem like enough. If you are in touch with inner strength, energy, uplift, enough is more than enough -- like a feast.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Life: The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom