black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Jack Kornfield

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.
JACK KORNFIELD

Condition Difficult Hide Insecurity Lose Nature Ourselves Protection Society
Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.
JACK KORNFIELD

Acceptance Life Spiritual
When we get too caught up in the busyness of the world, we lose connection with one another – and ourselves.
JACK KORNFIELD

Busy Connection Lose Ourselves World
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

Acceptance Compassionate Let Go Wisdom
Buddhists were actually the first cognitive-behavioral therapists.
JACK KORNFIELD

Buddhist First Therapists
The purpose of a spiritual discipline is to give us a way to stop the war, not by our force of will, but organically, through understanding an gradual training.
JACK KORNFIELD

Discipline Spiritual War
Anger shows us precisely where we are stuck, where our limits are, where we cling to beliefs and fears.
JACK KORNFIELD

Belief Limit Stuck
Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.
JACK KORNFIELD

Belief Compassionate Inspirational Patience Respect Yourself
We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.
JACK KORNFIELD

Discover Heart Learning Love Ourselves
Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart. Then choose.
JACK KORNFIELD

Choice Forgiveness Heart Regret True
In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go.
JACK KORNFIELD

End Learning Let Go Live
It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can’t close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart.
JACK KORNFIELD

Flower Heart Light Open Ourselves Season Sun True
When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.
JACK KORNFIELD

Aggression Alive Angry Change Fact Ourselves Struggle
We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.
JACK KORNFIELD

Day Forever Moments Night Open
Spiritual life doesn’t make you a good person; you ARE a good person, you are a holy being when you are born. What spiritual life does is remind us that this is who we really are.
JACK KORNFIELD

Born Goodness Life Person Reminder Spiritual Yourself
It is not enough to know that love and forgiveness are possible. We have to find ways to bring them to life.
JACK KORNFIELD

Enough Forgiveness Love Way
The waves do keep coming, so learn to surf.
JACK KORNFIELD

Learn Surf Wave
The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.
JACK KORNFIELD

Beginning Goal Mindset Ourselves
Nobody knows why they were born or where they come from.
JACK KORNFIELD

Born Philosophy Spiritual
As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.
JACK KORNFIELD

Discover Fear Ideas Image Old Place Purity Truth Wall Willing
To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.
JACK KORNFIELD

Born Death Let Go Live Moments Oneself
To see the preciousness of all things, we must bring our full attention to life.
JACK KORNFIELD

Attention Aware Life Ourselves See
The person who betrayed you is sunning themselves on a beach in Hawaii and you’re knotted up in hatred. Who is suffering?
JACK KORNFIELD

Betrayal Hate Person Suffering Yourself
The grief we carry is part of the grief of the world. Hold it gently. Let it be honored. You do not have to keep it in anymore. You can let go into the heart of compassion; you can weep.
JACK KORNFIELD

Carry Compassionate Grief Heart Hold Honor World Yourself
Wherever you are is the perfect place to awaken. This moment is the exact place to practice compassion and loving awareness. You have all the ingredients to breathe and find freedom just where you are.
JACK KORNFIELD

Awake Breathe Compassionate Freedom Moments Perfection Yourself
No matter how difficult the past, you can always begin again today.
JACK KORNFIELD

Beginning Difficult Past Yourself
What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation we must follow what brings us alive.
JACK KORNFIELD

Alive Conversation Music Ourselves Path Spiritual True

To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Jack Kornfield Quotes