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.
Jack KornfieldRead
The task is not to perfect yourself, it's to perfect your love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The focus should be on enhancing the love you give rather than striving for personal perfection.
This quote by Jack Kornfield emphasizes the importance of nurturing and perfecting the love we share with others instead of becoming fixated on achieving personal perfection. It suggests that our growth and fulfillment in life are rooted in the quality of our relationships and the love we cultivate, rather than the relentless pursuit of self-improvement.
Themes
LovePerfectionRelationshipsGrowthSelf-Improvement
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding speech to highlight the importance of love in relationships.
More from Jack Kornfield
All quotes →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.
Jack KornfieldRead
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?
Jack KornfieldRead
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.
Jack KornfieldRead
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.
Jack KornfieldRead
Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.
Jack KornfieldRead
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The greatest thing you can do for another being is to provide the unconditional love that comes from making contact with that place in them that is beyond conditions, which is just pure consciousness, pure essence. That is, once we acknowledge each other as existing, just being here, just being, then each of us is free to change optimally. If I can just love you because here we are, then you are free to grow as you need to grow.
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I never looked at the masses as my responsibility. I can only love one person at a time. So I began. I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand.
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If you don't love yourself, I'll make you see your own heart.
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Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist.
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