What you learn about pain in formal meditation can help you relate to it in your daily life. Sharon Salzberg More Quotes by Sharon Salzberg More Quotes From Sharon Salzberg Everyone's mind wanders, without doubt, and we always have to start over. Everyone resists or dislikes the thought of or is too tired to meditate at times, and we have to be able to begin again. Sharon Salzberg starting-overtireddoubt When you're wide open, the world is a good place. Sharon Salzberg good-placewideworld Doing nothing means unplugging from the compulsion to always keep ourselves busy, the habit of shielding ourselves from certain feelings, the tension of trying to manipulate our experience before we even fully acknowledge what that experience is. Sharon Salzberg feelingstryingmean In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence - ignorance... about the separation of self and other... about the consequences of our actions. Sharon Salzberg buddhistignoranceteaching When we see the relatedness of ourselves to the universe, that we do not live as isolated entities, untouched by what is going on around us, not affecting what is going on around us, when we see through that, that we are interrelated, then we can see that to protect others is to protect ourselves, and to protect ourselves it to protect others. Sharon Salzberg isolatedentityprotect The Buddha said that no true spiritual life is possible without a generous heart. . . . Generosity allies itself with an inner feeling of abundance - the feeling that we have enough to share. Sharon Salzberg generosityspiritualheart You should never use the word Karma when talking about someone else, it's only a concept you should apply to yourself as a matter of investigation. Sharon Salzberg karmausetalking I've spent quite a bit of my life as a meditation teacher and writer commending the strengths of love and compassion. Sharon Salzberg compassionmeditationteacher My earliest experiences in meditation were in a context of intensive retreats. Sharon Salzberg retreatmeditation The cultivation of generosity is the beginning of spiritual awakening. Generosity has tremendous force because it arises from an inner quality of letting go. Being able to let go, to give up, to renounce, and to give generously all spring from the same source, and when we practice generosity ... we open up these qualities within ourselves. Sharon Salzberg giving-upspiritualletting-go The meditation traditions I started and have continued practicing have all emphasized inclusivity: anyone can do this who is interested. Sharon Salzberg traditionmeditationcan-do We all want to be happy. We need to expand the notion of what that means, to make it bigger and wiser. Sharon Salzberg wantmeanneeds The key to cultivating confidence in ourselves is understanding our right to make the truth our own. Sharon Salzberg cultivatingunderstandingkeys One of the primary conditions for suffering is denial. Shutting our mind to pain, whether in ourselves or others, only ensures that it will continue. We must have the strength to face it without turning away. By opening to the pain we see around us with wisdom and compassion, we start to experience the intimate connection of our relationship with all beings. Sharon Salzberg paincompassionmind Meditation is not the construction of something foreign, it is not an effort to attain and then hold on to a particular experience. We may have a secret desire that through meditation we will accumulate a stockpile of magical experiences, or at least a mystical trophy or two, and then we will be able to proudly display them for others to see. Sharon Salzberg effortmeditationtwo My ideal registration system would be an opt-out one, where every single person is registered once they turn 18. In Australia, I’m told, everyone is registered to vote and you pay a fine if you don’t vote. Sharon Salzberg australiawould-bepay I prefer to think of faith, as Coleridge says of poetry, not as the taking up of belief but as "the willing suspension of disbelief". . . a willingness to be open, to explore, to investigate. Sharon Salzberg belieffaiththinking When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life. Sharon Salzberg mettaour-relationshippractice Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root. Sharon Salzberg objectsrootskindness Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change. Sharon Salzberg meditationmindintegrity
