Sharon Salzberg: I am totally amazed at the spread of interest in medi...

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.

Sharon Salzberg

change inspirational life

The critical element in meditation practice is beginning again. Everyone loses focus at times, everyone loses interest at times, and everyone gets distracted over and over again. What is essential, and also incredibly transforming, is realizing that we have the ability to begin again, without blaming or judging ourselves, without thinking we have failed, without losing heart, we can, and need to, constantly be beginning again.

Sharon Salzberg

yoga heart thinking

We can travel a long way in life and do many things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. it is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home.

Sharon Salzberg

letting-go home life

The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.

Sharon Salzberg

misery differences attention

It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. Its never too late to take a moment to look.

Sharon Salzberg

meditation-practice dark running

Loving ourselves opens us to truly knowing ourselves as part of the matrix of existence, inextricably connected to the boundlessness of life... when we see that we are far bigger than the person that is delineated by family or cultural expectations, we realize we are capable of so much more than we usually dare to imagine.

Sharon Salzberg

realizing knowing expectations

We spend our lives searching for something we think we don't have, something that will make us happy. But the key to our deepest happiness lies in changing our vision of where to seek it.

Sharon Salzberg

happy happiness lying

Often we can achieve an even better result when we stumble yet are willing to start over, when we don't give up after a mistake, when something doesn't come easily but we throw ourselves into trying, when we're not afraid to appear less than perfectly polished.

Sharon Salzberg

dont-give-up giving-up mistake

To be truly happy in this world is a revolutionary act...It is a radical change of view that liberates us so that we know who we are most deeply and can acknowledge our enormous ability to love.

Sharon Salzberg

who-we-are views world

We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.

Sharon Salzberg

growth grows motivational

What comes up is not nearly as important as how you relate to what comes up.

Sharon Salzberg

relate come-up important

Meditation is not a matter of trying to stop thinking or make your mind go blank but rather to realize when your attention is wandering and to simply let go of the thoughts and begin again. It is a way of changing our relationship to our thoughts, so we're not so consumed by them, with no sense of space. Having a newly spacious relationship to our thoughts brings both peace and freedom.

Sharon Salzberg

space letting-go thinking

If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness.

Sharon Salzberg

loneliness heart world

Meditation has made me happy, loving, and peaceful-but not every single moment of the day. I still have good times and bad, joy and sorrow. Now I can accept setbacks more easily, with less sense of disappointment and personal failure, because meditation has taught me how to cope with the profound truth that everything changes all the time.

Sharon Salzberg

single-mom disappointment profound

Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.

Sharon Salzberg

meditation-practice inspiration mindfulness

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

Sharon Salzberg

meditation-and-yoga meditation-practice inspiration

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we're heading down an unhealthy path, and, if so, let go and change directions.

Sharon Salzberg

mindfulness letting-go watches

As I go through all kinds of feelings and experiences in my journey through life -- delight, surprise, chagrin, dismay -- I hold this question as a guiding light: 'What do I really need right now to be happy?' What I come to over and over again is that only qualities as vast and deep as love, connection and kindness will really make me happy in any sort of enduring way.

Sharon Salzberg

journey kindness happiness

All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others

Sharon Salzberg

ignorance mindfulness suffering

Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves.

Sharon Salzberg

different integrity needs

I am totally amazed at the spread of interest in meditation. When I first came back from studying in India in 1974, I would be asked in social situations what I did. When I replied, "I teach meditation" they would frequently look at me as though to say "That is weird," and sort of sidle away.