The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.
SHARON SALZBERGIt 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.
More Sharon Salzberg Quotes
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The overarching practice of letting go is also one of gaining resilience and insight.
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If we have nothing material to give, we can offer our attention, our energy, our appreciation. The world needs us. It doesn’t deplete us to give.
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The mind thinks thoughts that we don’t plan. It’s not as if we say, ‘At 9:10 I’m going to be filled with self-hatred.
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Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root.
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If we fall, we don’t need self-recrimination or blame or anger – we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to re-commit, to be whole-hearted once again.
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Let the breath lead the way.
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The key to cultivating confidence in ourselves is understanding our right to make the truth our own.
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Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.
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Thinking we are only supposed to have loving & compassionate feelings can be a terrible obstacle to spiritual practice.
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With a clear intention and a willing spirit, sooner or later we experience the joy and freedom that arises when we recognize our common humanity with others and see that real love excludes no one.
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The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are.
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Pain & suffering requires time, awareness, and an intentional practice of self-love to disentangle.
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When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.
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Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way—with awareness, balance, and love
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Effort is the unconstrained willingness to persevere through difficulty.
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Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.
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The combination of realizing our distinctiveness along with our unity is seeing interdependence.
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Vulnerability in the face of constant change is what we share, whatever our present condition.
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Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.
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To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.
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Compassion grows in us when we know how the energy of love is available all around us.
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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.
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Fearful of wasting a second, we hoard time as if it were money.
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People turn to meditation because they want to make good decisions, break bad habits & bounce back better from disappointments.
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By engaging in a delusive quest for happiness, we bring only suffering upon ourselves. In our frantic search for something to quench our thirst, we overlook the water all around us and drive ourselves into exile from our own lives.
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We use mindfulness to observe the way we cling to pleasant experiences & push away unpleasant ones.
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