Sharon Salzberg Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Sharon Salzberg. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
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Sharon Salzberg
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You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
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Sharon Salzberg
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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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Sharon Salzberg
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We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you're doing.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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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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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.
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Sharon Salzberg
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Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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It 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. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. Its never too late to take a moment to look.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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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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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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We often get caught up in our own reactions and forget the vulnerability of the person in front of us.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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You are capable of so much more than we usually dare to imagine
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Sharon Salzberg
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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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Sharon Salzberg
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Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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We don’t need any sort of religious orientation to lead a life that is ethical, compassionate & kind.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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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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Sharon Salzberg
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For all of us, love can be the natural state of our own being; naturally at peace, naturally connected, because this becomes the reflection of who we simply are.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Mindfulness, also called wise attention, helps us see what we’re adding to our experiences, not only during meditation sessions but also elsewhere.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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If you’re reading these words, perhaps it’s because something has kicked open the door for you, and you’re ready to embrace change. It isn’t enough to appreciate change from afar, or only in the abstract, or as something that can happen to other people but not to you. We need to create change for ourselves, in a workable way, as part of our everyday lives.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Programme for Real Happiness)
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To reteach a thing its loveliness is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone & everything can flower again from within.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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We long for permanence but everything in the known universe is transient. That’s a fact but one we fight.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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We’re capable of much more than mediocrity, much more than merely getting by in this world.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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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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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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To offer our hearts in faith means recognizing that our hearts are worth something, that we ourselves, in our deepest and truest nature, are of value.
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Sharon Salzberg (Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience)
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We use mindfulness to observe the way we cling to pleasant experiences & push away unpleasant ones.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Let the breath lead the way.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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We are all too often told by someone that we are too old, too young, too different, too much the same, and those comments can be devastating.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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As we practice meditation, we get used to stillness and eventually are able to make friends with the quietness of our sensations.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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Our ability to connect with others is innate, wired into our nervous systems, and we need connection as much as we need physical nourishment.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Metta is the ability to embrace all parts of ourselves, as well as all parts of the world. Practicing metta illuminates our inner integrity because it relieves us of the need to deny different aspects of ourselves. We can open to everything with the healing force of love. When we feel love, our mind is expansive and open enough to include the entirety of life in full awareness, both its pleasures and its pains, we feel neither betrayed by pain or overcome by it, and thus we can contact that which is undamaged within us regardless of the situation. Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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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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Sharon Salzberg (The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Programme for Real Happiness)
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The embodiment of kindness is often made difficult by our long ingrained patterns of fear & jealousy.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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Effort is the unconstrained willingness to persevere through difficulty.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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Because the development of inner calm & energy happens completely within & isn’t dependent on another person or a particular situation, we begin to feel a resourcefulness and independence that is quite beautifulβ€”and a huge relief.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Once we are honest about our feelings, we can invite ourselves to consider alternative modes of viewing our pain and can see that releasing our grip on anger and resentment can actually be an act of self-compassion.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.
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Sharon Salzberg (Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier)
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By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Once someone appears to us primarily as an object, kindness has no place to root.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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When we don’t tell those we love about what’s really going on or listen carefully to what they have to say, we tend to fill in the blanks with stories.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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If we truly loved ourselves, we’d never harm another. That is a truly revolutionary, celebratory mode of self-care.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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The movement of the heart as we practice generosity in the outer world mirrors the movement of the heart when we let go of conditioned views about ourselves on our inner journey. Letting go creates a joyful sense of space in our minds
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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Meditation is a microcosm, a model, a mirror. The skills we practice when we sit are transferable to the rest of our lives.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Seeking is endless. It never comes to a state of rest; it never ceases.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Buddha first taught metta meditation as an antidote: as a way of surmounting terrible fear when it arises.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Like water poured from one vessel to another, metta flows freely, taking the shape of each situation without changing its essence.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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We find greater lightness & ease in our lives as we increasingly care for ourselves & other beings.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Abiding faith does not depend on borrowed concepts. Rather, it is the magnetic force of a bone-deep, lived understanding, one that draws us to realize our ideals, walk our talk,and act in accord with what we know to be true.
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Sharon Salzberg (Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience)
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Sometimes kindness is stepping aside, letting go of our need to be right & just being happy for someone.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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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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Sharon Salzberg (The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Programme for Real Happiness)
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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.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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over time, offering loving kindness to all beings everywhere, including ourselves, unites us to one another so that we know that we can not go forward forgetting those left behind." Page 62
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Sharon Salzberg (The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion)
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In order to do anything about the suffering of the world we must have the strength to face it without turning away.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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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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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more awareβ€” not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Programme for Real Happiness)
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As an ability, love is always there as a potential, ready to flourish and help our lives flourish. As we go up and down in life, as we acquire or lose, as we are showered with praise or unfairly blamed, always within there is the ability of love, recognized or not, given life or not.
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Sharon Salzberg (The Kindness Handbook: A Practical Companion)
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Vulnerability in the face of constant change is what we share, whatever our present condition.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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We can understand the inherent radiance & purity of our minds by understanding metta. Like the mind, metta is not distorted by what it encounters.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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All forms of meditation strengthen & direct our attention through the cultivation of three key skills: concentration, mindfulness & compassion or lovingkindness.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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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.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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For any marginalized group to change the story that society tells about them takes courage and perseverance.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Love exists in itself, not relying on owning or being owned.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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Trying to impose our personal agenda on someone else’s experience is the shadow side of love, while real love recognizes that life unfolds at its own pace.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Loving kindness is a form of love that truly is an ability, and, as research scientists have show, it can be learned. It is the ability to take some risks with our awareness-to look at ourselves and others with kindness instead of reflexive criticism; to include in our concern those to whom we normally pay no attention; to care for ourselves unconditionally instead of thinking, "I will love myself as long as I never make a mistake." It is the ability to gather our attention and really listen to others, even those we've written off as not worth our time. It is the ability to see the humanity in people we don't know and the pain in people we find difficult.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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The fulfillment we have in owning, in desiring, is temporary and illusory, because there is nothing at all we can have that we will not lose eventually. And so there is always fear.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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The art of concentration is a continual letting go. We let go of what is inessential or distracting. We let go of a thought or a feeling, not because we are afraid of it or because we can’t bear to acknowledge it as a part of our experience; but, because it is UNNECESSARY.
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Sharon Salzberg (Unplug)
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Self-compassion is like a muscle. The more we practice flexing it, especially when life doesn’t go exactly according to plan (a frequent scenario for most of us), the stronger and more resilient our compassion muscle becomes.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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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 wayβ€”with awareness, balance, and love
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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The poet Rumi says: "How long will we fill our pockets like children with dirt and stones? Let the world go. Holding it, we never know ourselves, never are airborne.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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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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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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Training attention through meditation opens our eyes.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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With the practice of meditation we can develop this ability to more fully love ourselves and to more consistently love others.
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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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With mindfulness, loving kindness, and self-compassion, we can begin to let go of our expectations about how life and those we love should be.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Just as a prism refracts light differently when you change its angle, each experience of love illuminates love in new ways, drawing from an infinite palette of patterns and hues.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
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Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain & other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress & yet not be overwhelmed by it.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Can you revise your perceptions to see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering, instead of good and bad? To see the world in terms of suffering and the end of suffering is Buddha-mind, and will lead us away from righteousness and anger. Get in touch with your own Buddha-mind, and you will uncover a healing force of compassion.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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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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Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World: Stories on the Path of Lovingkindness)
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look at the world with quiet eyes.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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Having' something makes us think we can control it.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, β€œYou can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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You may have heard the old story, usually attributed to a Native American elder, meant to illuminate the power of attention. A grandfather (occasionally it’s a grandmother) imparting a life lesson to his grandson tells him, "I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is vengeful, fearful, envious, resentful, deceitful. The other wolf is loving, compassionate, generous, truthful, and serene." The grandson asks which wolf will win the fight. The grandfather answers, "The one I feed.
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Sharon Salzberg (Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation)
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These four qualities are among the most beautiful and powerful states of consciousness we can experience. Together they are called in Pali, the language spoken by the Buddha, the brahma-viharas. Brahma means β€œheavenly.” Vihara means β€œabode” or β€œhome.” By practicing these meditations, we establish love (Pali, metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha) as our home.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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Desire- grasping, clinging, greed, attachment - is a state of mind that defines what we think we need in order to be happy. We project all of our hopes and dreams of fulfillment onto some object of our attention. This may be a certain activity or outcome, a particular thing or person. Deluded by our temporary enchantment, we view the world with tunnel vision. That object, and that alone, will make us happy.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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There is no reason for a feeling of separation from anything or anyone, because we have been it all and done it all. How then can we feel self-righteous or removed from anyone or any action? Ther is no spot on this earth where we have not laughed, cried, been born and died. So in some sense, every single place we go is home. Everyone we meet we know. Everything that is done we are capable of.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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The Dalai Lama has said: β€œMy religion is kindness.” If we all adopted such a stance and embodied it in thought and action, inner and outer peace would be immediate, for in reality they are never not present, only obscured, waiting to be discovered. This is the work and the power of lovingkindness, the embrace that allows no separation between self, others, and eventsβ€”the affirmation and honoring of a core goodness in others and in oneself.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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The man felt that she had not been a very good mother and was not a good person. At one point, Nisargadatta advised him to love his mother. The man replied, β€œShe wouldn’t let me.” Nisargadatta responded, β€œShe couldn’t stop you.” No external condition can prevent love; no one and no thing can stop it. The awakening of love is not bound up in things being a certain way. Metta, like the true nature of the mind, is not dependent; it is not conditioned.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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The intentions or motives that underlie all of our words and actions plant seeds. Certain kinds of intentions will inevitably bear fruits of the same type. This also is an infallible law of nature. Wholesome intentions- like lovingkindness, compassion, honesty, and respect for the lives and property of others- if they manifest in action will sooner or later bear us the fruits of happiness. Unwholesome intentions - like hatred, cruelty, duplicity - will bear us the fruits of suffering if we express them in words or deeds. No action is without consequences.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Library))
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The Buddha actually described at some length what he meant by being a good friend in the world. He talked about a good friend as someone who is constant in our times of happiness and also in our times of adversity or unhappiness. A friend will not forsake us when we are in trouble nor rejoice in our misfortune. The Buddha described a true friend as being a helper, someone who will protect us when we are unable to take care of ourselves, who will be a refuge to us when we are afraid.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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This vision is always available to us; it doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, or a week, or ten thousand yearsβ€”we turn on the light and it is illumined. Once we contact our capacity for love and happinessβ€”the goodβ€”the light has been turned on. Practicing the brahma-viharas is a way of turning on the light and then tending it. It is a process of deep spiritual transformation.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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For a true spiritual transformation to flourish, we must see beyond this tendency to mental self-flagellation. Spirituality based on self-hatred can never sustain itself. Generosity coming from self-hatred becomes martyrdom. Morality born of self-hatred becomes rigid repression. Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boundaries, codependency, and a painful and fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditation, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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When we have insight into our inner world and what brings us happiness, then wordlessly, intuitively, we understand others. As though there were no longer a barrier defining the boundaries of our caring, we can feel close to others’ experience of life. We see that when we are angry, there is an element of pain in the anger that is not different from the pain that others feel when they are angry. When we feel love, there is a distinct and special joy in that feeling. We come to know that this is the nature of love itself, and that other beings filled with love experience this same joy.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))
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The path to true happiness is one of integrating and fully accepting all aspects of our experience. This integration is represented in the Taoist symbol of yin/yang, a circle which is half dark and half light. In the midst of the dark area is a spot of light, and in the midst of the light area is a spot of darkness. Even in the depths of darkness, the light is implicit. Even in the heart of light, the dark is understood, acknowledged, and absorbed. If things are not going well for us in life and we are suffering, we are not defeated by the pain or closed off to the light. If things are going well and we are happy, we are not defensively trying to deny the possibility of suffering. This unity, this integration, comes from deeply accepting darkness and light, and therefore being able to be in both simultaneously.
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Sharon Salzberg (Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala Classics))