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Jack Kornfield Quotes about Pain

All Jack Kornfield Quotes Acceptance Art Awakening Belief Buddhism Caring Children Commitment Community Compassion Confusion Consciousness Desire Discipline Doubt Earth Feelings Fighting Forgiveness Generosity Giving Gratitude Grief Hate Hatred Heart Honor Ignorance Insecurity Inspirational Joy Kindness Letting Go Loss Lying Meditation Memories Mindfulness Pain quotes Past Philosophy Prayer Quality Reality Resentment Running Simplicity Sorrow Struggle Suffering Understanding War Warrior Yoga

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots

The unawakened mind tends to make war against the way things are. To follow a path with heart, we must understand the whole process of making war within ourselves and without, how it begins and how it ends. War’s roots are in ignorance. Without understanding we can easily become frightened by life’s fleeting changes, the inevitable losses, disappointments, the insecurity of our aging and death. Misunderstanding leads us to fight against life, running from pain or grasping at security and pleasures that by their nature can never be satisfying.

Running, Pain, Disappointment

Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss and hiding from the basic truths of the natural world and of our own nature.

Pain, Fighting, Buddhism

Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.23, Random House

Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.

Inspirational, Pain, Hate

Finding a way to extend forgiveness to ourselves is one of our most essential tasks. Just as others have been caught in suffering, so have we. If we look honestly at our life, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. In this we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves; we can hold the pain we have caused in compassion. Without such mercy, we will live our own life in exile.

Pain, Compassion, Suffering

Jack Kornfield (2012). “Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are”, p.55, Shambhala Publications

When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present - our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love - everything that moves us most deeply.

Pain, Grief, Moving

We need courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit. But the place for this warrior strength is in the heart. We need energy, commitment, and courage not to run from our life nor to cover it over with any philosophy-mate rial or spiritual. We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

Running, Spiritual, Pain

Compassion arises naturally as the quivering of the heart in the face of pain, ours and another's. True compassion is not limited by the separateness of pity, nor by the fear of being overwhelmed. When we come to rest in the great heart of compassion, we discover a capacity to bear witness to, suffer with, and hold dear with our own vulnerable heart the sorrows and beauties of the world.

Pain, Heart, Compassion

But forgiveness is the act of not putting anyone out of your heart, even those who are acting out of deep ignorance or out of confusion and pain.

Pain, Heart, Ignorance

Jack Kornfield (2012). “Meditation for Beginners: Six Guided Meditations for Insight, Inner Clarity, and Cultivating a Compassionate Heart”, p.31, Sounds True

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.

Song, Prayer, Pain

One of the essential tasks for living a wise life is letting go. Letting go is the path to freedom. It is only by letting go of the hopes, the fears, the pain, the past, the stories that have a hold on us that we can quiet our mind and open our heart.

Letting Go, Wise, Pain

If we are engaged in actions that cause pain and conflict to ourselves and others, it is impossible for the mind to become settled, collected, and focused in meditation; it is impossible for the heart to open.

Pain, Heart, Meditation

Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield (2001). “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation”, p.8, Shambhala Publications

There are several different kinds of painful feelings that we might experience, and learning to distinguish and relate to these feelings of discomfort or pain is an important part of meditation practice, because it is one of the very first things that we open to as our practice develops.

Pain, Meditation Practice, Feelings

According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the "quivering of the pure heart" when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.

Buddhist, Pain, Heart

Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.27, Random House

You are the mystery incarnating itself, and it's beautiful when you remember. It's also painful and awesome and it contains unbearable beauty and unfathomable pain - the ocean of tears and galaxy of bliss. I don't say that lightly, but it's what we have.

Beautiful, Pain, Ocean

In opening we can see how many times we have mistaken small identities and fearful beliefs for our true nature and how limiting this is. We can touch with great compassion the pain from the contracted identities that we and others have created in the world.

Pain, Buddhism, Compassion

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.

Pain, Ocean, Fall

Strength of the Heart comes from knowing that the pain that we each must bear is part of the greater pain shared by all that lives. It is not just 'our' pain, but 'the' pain and realizing this awakens our universal compassion

Pain, Heart, Compassion

Jack Kornfield (2008). “A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life”, p.75, Random House

Great pain, when it is honored from the heart, opens into great understanding.

Pain, Heart, Understanding

We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.

Pain, Heart, Warrior

We each have been betrayed. Let yourself picture and remember the many ways this is true. Feel the sorrow you have carried from this past. Now sense that you can release this burden of pain by gradually extending forgiveness as your heart is ready.

Pain, Heart, Past

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