Jack Kornfield Quotes

When Patanjali says "non-attachment", he is not anti-love. Really, he is for love. Non-attachment means be natural, loving, flowing, but don't get obsessed and addicted. Addiction is the problem. Then it is like a disease. You cannot love anybody except your child - this is addiction. Then you will be in misery. Your child can die; then there is no possibility for your love to flow. Even if your child is not going to die, he will grow. And the more he grows, the more he will become independent. And then there will be pain. Every mother suffers, every father suffers.

If you want to liberate someone, love them.Not be in love with them - that's dangerous. If you're in love with your children, you're in their lives all the time. Leave them alone! Let them grow and make some mistakes. Tell them, "You can come home. My arms are here - and my mouth is too." When you really love them, you don't want to possess them. You don't say, "I love you and I want you here with me."

If you loved someone, really loved them, would you let them go?

Love without attachment is light.

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in 'renouncing' one's own self, by which I mean making up one's mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being 'happy' or 'unhappy' in the usual meaning of the words.

I am happy with what comes, I don't have expectations of any stature.

I think if you don't expect anything from the world, you'll have a lovely time.

I loved the fact that it wasn't my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God's, that my part was just to communicate love and approval.

To relinquish the futile effort to control change is one of the strengthening forces of true detachment & thus true love.

When you stay present with your children, that’s where abundance is. And when you stay out of their business, that’s where everything you deserve in life is. When you’re in presence, there’s no story, and you are abundance. And you come to trust that space so often that you just eventually hang out as that, because there is nothing that can move you out of it, not even a perceived child or a perceived anything.

God is love and doesn't ask for anything back in return. So it's that process of letting go and just allowing, and just being in that pure state.

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.

No matter how many times I tell you this, you're still thinking, thinking, judging, judging, coming to conclusions, trying to work out your life. You have to let go. Totally, absolutely, completely. You have to let go so completely that you will feel no body, no mind, no pain, nothing.

If you truly love someone, then the only thing you want for them is to be happy....even if its not with you.

Forget about winning and losing, forget about pride and pain

If you love someone and they want to leave, you help them pack. That's love

Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me.

I love being lost! I don't need to control anything. Even with romantic partnerships, I don't need to control anyone. I think I have some very meaningful relationships with people, we all do. At the same time, I recognize that everyone is following their own heart; there's been people who have left my life and I don't have a problem with that.

When we recognize that nothing has to go right for us to be happy, that people do not have to behave for us to love them, our walk home can be surprisingly simple. We have enormous power not to manipulate the world, but to be happy and to know peace.

It´s natural to want someone you love to do what you want, or what you think would be good for them, but you have to let everything happen to them. You can't interfere with people you love any more than you're supposed to interfere with people you don't even know. And that's hard, ..., because you often feel like interfering -you want to be the one who makes the plans.

As you identify less and less with the “me”, you will be more at ease with everybody and with everything. Do you know why? Because you are no longer afraid of being hurt or not liked. You no longer desire to impress anyone. Can you imagine the relief when you don't have to impress anybody anymore? Oh, what a relief. Happiness at last!

I don't chase after things, but I put forward the effort and know the rest of it is out of my hands.

it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.

to love means to realize there is a time to let the beloved one go