Quotes by Meditation Teachers - Page 2

Meditation is a microcosm, a model, a mirror. The skills we practice when we sit are transferable to the rest of our lives.

Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves and our experience.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.

Sharon Salzberg

If I am not the body that was born and dies, and I am not the mind that always changes, then who am I? The One who is aware of the body, aware of the mind, and aware of the questions.

Leonard Perlmutter

Mindfulness allows us to shift the angle on our story and to remember that we have the capacity to learn and change in ways that are productive, not self-defeating.

Sharon Salzberg

Although much of the work we do in committed relationships we do with our partners, sometimes it’s necessary to start with ourselves.

Sharon Salzberg

We cannot force the development of mindfulness.

Allan Lokos

September 8Today I pray for the knowledge of God’s will for me and then follow my inner guidance. I choose to make my thoughts and actions align with peace and love.

Ruth Fishel

Mindfulness may help you gain insight into your role in conflicts with others, it won’t single-highhandedly help you resolve them.

Sharon Salzberg

Instead of catching ourselves after we first felt angry, we develop a visceral sensitivity to what's happening within us in the moment & through mindfulness, we can shape our reaction right away.

Sharon Salzberg

There is no illness that is not exacerbated by stress.

Allan Lokos

People turn to meditation because they want to make good decisions, break bad habits & bounce back better from disappointments.

Sharon Salzberg

So often, fear keeps us from being able to say yes to love—perhaps our greatest challenge as human beings.

Sharon Salzberg

Note that this journey is uniquely yours, no one else's. So the path has to be your own. You cannot imitate somebody else's journey and still be true to yourself. Are you prepared to honor your uniqueness in this way?

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Evolutionary biologists tell us we have a “negativity bias” that makes our brains remember negative events more strongly than positive ones. So when we’re feeling lost or discouraged, it can be very hard to conjure up memories and feelings of happiness and ease.

Sharon Salzberg

You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that.

Sharon Salzberg

While happiness is an end in itself, it is also the state of mind we can have right now.

Sharon Salzberg

When we don't automatically take them (thoughts) personally or believe the stories about "reality" that we build from them,when we can simply hold them in awareness with a sense of curiosity and wonder at their amazing power given their insubstantiality, their limitations,and inaccuracies,then we have a chance right in that moment,in any moment really,to not get caught in their habitual patterning,to see thoughts for what they are,impersonal events.Then in that moment at least, we are already free,ready to act with greater clarity and kindness within the constantly changing field of events that is nothing other than life unfolding-- not always as we think it should,but definitely as it is.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Remember, everyone you meet is really trying to do the best they can. No one woke up today and intentionally decided to be mean, difficult, or unreasonable - including you.

John Bruna

Some Buddhists have criticized secular Buddhism because they think it waters down Buddhism. I like to think of it as adding Buddhist flavoring to the sparkling water of secularism.

Rick Heller

Real Love for ourselves by definition includes every aspect of our lives—the good, the bad, the difficult, the challenging past, the uncertain future, as well as all the shameful, upsetting experiences and encounters we’d just as soon forget.

Sharon Salzberg

People in the midst of losing their patience are certainly experiencing as aspect of dukkha.

Allan Lokos

Even when we do our very best to treat those close to us with utmost respect and understanding, conflict happens. That’s life. That’s human nature.

Sharon Salzberg

The unconscious mind is a vast repository of experiences and associations that sorts things out much faster than the slow-moving conscious mind.

Sharon Salzberg

Another way to look at meditation is to view the process of thinking itself as a waterfall, a continual cascading of thought. In cultivating mindfulness we are going beyond or behind our thinking, much the way you might find a vantagepoint in a cave or depression in a rock behind a waterfall. We still see and hear the water, but we are out of the torrent.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

The practice of loving-kindness is about cultivating love as a trans-formative strength,

Sharon Salzberg

[R]emain open to not knowing, perhaps allowing yourself to come to the point of admitting, "I don't know," and then experimenting with relaxing a bit into this not knowing instead of condemning yourself for it. After all, in this moment, it may be an accurate statement of how things are for you.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it’s also more grounded & sustainable.

Sharon Salzberg

We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.

Sharon Salzberg

If we turn away from our own pain, we may find ourselves projecting this aversion onto others, seeing them as somehow inadequate for being in a troubled situation.

Sharon Salzberg

Do not speak about anyone who is not physically present.

Allan Lokos

I didn't know you had a cat!' she excl

David Michie

Like depression, loneliness arises from unhappiness creating thoughts feeding into the insula, deepening the negative spiral of thoughts and feelings.

David Michie

Fearful of wasting a second, we hoard time as if it were money.

Sharon Salzberg

We learn from conflicts only when we are willing to do so.

Sharon Salzberg

The venerable teachers, philosophers & spiritual practitioners throughout history have concluded that the greatest happiness we can experience comes from the development of an open, loving heart.

Allan Lokos

Like water poured from one vessel to another, metta ﬂows freely, taking the shape of each situation without changing its essence.

Sharon Salzberg

Patience is an ever present alternative to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience. Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger. It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it. This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to. It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully, moving fast because you have chosen to.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Our genuine happiness comes from doing things we feel good about, not from doing things that make us feel good.

John Bruna

One foundation of loving relationships is curiosity, keeping open to the idea that we have much to learn even about those we have been close to for decades.

Sharon Salzberg

Awareness is not the same as thought. It lies beyond thinking, although it makes use of thinking, honoring its value and its power. Awareness is more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see and know our thoughts as thoughts rather than getting caught up in them in reality.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

The doors that open and close in our lives are not nearly as important as the person we are when we open them.

John Bruna

We all have limitations. They are worth befriending. They teach us a lot. They can show us what we most need to pay attention to and honor. They become our cutting edge for learning and growing and gentling ourselves into the present moment as it is.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

This is it.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

There's nothing like a good, long sleep to allow unpleasantness to recede into the past.

David Michie

Taking in another’s criticism, even when it’s offered out of love, requires courage.

Sharon Salzberg

Healing comes in many ways, and no one formula fits all.

Sharon Salzberg

In Buddhism we would say that you are lazy... Despising yourself, thinking you are no good, saying 'I can't do this.' This is the mind of weakness. You must work to overcome it .

David Michie

We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

True patience is grounded in wisdom & compassion.

Allan Lokos

We are all in this together. Our happiness inextricably is tied to that of all beings.

Allan Lokos

Thoughts, words, emotions & deeds not coming from love are likely coming from fear.

Allan Lokos

Ultimately, we forgive others in order to free ourselves.

Sharon Salzberg

I have found that this is pretty radical notion for anyone who was raised with a strong Christian background. Within that religious tradition there is an emphasis on original sin, which dictates that we area bacically not good at all but must work for our salvation. Within the Buddhist tradition we are saying the opposite: actually you are basically good. You are basically wise. You are basically kind. You just need to discover that truth and develop confidence in it.

Lodro Rinzler

For men and women alike, this journey is a the trajectory between birth and death, a human life lived. No one escapes the adventure. We only work with it differently.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

if we really look at our actions with eyes of love, we see that our lives can be more straightforward, simpler, less sculpted by regret and fear, more in alignment with our deepest values.

Sharon Salzberg

When we truly allow ourselves to feel our own pain, over time it comes to seem less personal. We start to recognize that what we’ve perceived as our pain is, at a deeper level, the pain inherent in human existence.

Sharon Salzberg

A modern definition of equanimity: cool. This refers to one whose mind remains stable & calm in all situations.

Allan Lokos

When we can step back even briefly from our hurt, sorrow, and anger, when we put our faith in the possibility of change, we create the possibility for non-judgmental inquiry that aims for healing rather than victory.

Sharon Salzberg

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