Jack Kornfield

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

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.

The questions asked at the end of lie are very simple ones: Did I love well? Did I love the people around me, my community, the earth, in a deep way? And perhaps, Did I live fully? Did I offer myself to life?

We can bring our spiritual practice into the streets, into our communities, when we see each realm as a temple, as a place to discover that which is sacred.

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.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

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.

To learn to concentrate we must choose a prayer or meditation and follow this path with commitment and steadiness, a willingness to work with our practice day after day, no matter what arises.

Nirvana manifests as ease, as love, as connectedness, as generosity, as clarity, as unshakable freedom. This isn’t watering down nirvana. This is the reality of liberation that we can experience, sometimes in a moment and sometimes in transformative ways that change our entire life

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

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.

Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?

There are many ways up the mountain and each of us must choose a practice that feels true to our heart.

Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.

The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom.

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

Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

The things that matter most in our lives are not fantastic or grand. They are the moments when we touch one another.

In deep self acceptance, grows a compassionate understanding.

When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.

The task is not to perfect yourself, it's to perfect your love.