To learn to concentrate we must choose a prayer or meditation and follow this path with commitment and steadiness, a willingness to work with our practice day after day, no matter what arises. Jack Kornfield More Quotes by Jack Kornfield More Quotes From Jack Kornfield It takes courage to grieve, to honor the pain we carry. We can grieve in tears or in meditative silence, in prayer or in song. In touching the pain of recent and long-held griefs, we come face to face with our genuine human vulnerability, with helplessness and hopelessness. These are the storm clouds of the heart. Jack Kornfield pain prayer song 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 we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts. Jack Kornfield accomplishment spiritual heart When our identity expands to include everything, we find a peace with the dance of the world. The ocean of life rises and falls within us - birth and death, joy and pain, it is all ours, and our heart is full and empty, large enough to embrace it all. Jack Kornfield pain ocean fall The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit. Jack Kornfield moving-on forgiveness inspirational It only take a few minutes of meditation to directly realize we are a river of sensations, feelings, thoughts, perceptions. How can we navigate this evanescent river of life wisely? With mindful awareness and love it becomes clear. You can fight against the river of change, or use its wisdom to teach you how to graciously move and create and flow with the full measure of joy and sorrow, gain and loss, praise and blame that make up every human incarnation. Jack Kornfield fighting loss moving Grant that I have enough suffering that my heart really opens to the great compassion of this world, that I be given enough so that I don't wall myself off from the world, that it breaks down the heart and the separation and the ego and the fear, and it lets me touch the nectar, the milk of kindness itself, of something greater. Jack Kornfield wall kindness heart The task is not to perfect yourself, it's to perfect your love. Jack Kornfield tasks perfect No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we can always set our compass to our highest intentions in the present moment Jack Kornfield compass moments matter Every individual has a unique contribution. Jack Kornfield individual contribution unique 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 names class war As surely as there is a voyage away, there is a journey home. Jack Kornfield journey-home journey home When we feel anger toward someone, we can consider that they are a being just like us, who has faced much suffering in life. Jack Kornfield sufferings-in-life suffering feels To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own. Jack Kornfield hate letting-go mean The best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own. Jack Kornfield meditation self inspirational Tending to ourselves, we tend the world. Tending the world, we tend ourselves. Jack Kornfield world Life without forgiveness is unbearable. Jack Kornfield unbearable You need a community. They remind you when you forget, and you remind them when they forget. Jack Kornfield community forget needs To meditate is to discover new possibilities, to awaken the capacities of us has to live more wisely, more lovingly, more compassionately, and more fully. Jack Kornfield new-possibilities possibility capacity Equanimity arises when we accept the way things are. Jack Kornfield accepting mindfulness way To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. Jack Kornfield warrior spiritual needs
