Jack Kornfield Quotes

SPIRITUAL EXERCISES whereby to conquer oneself, and order one's life, without being influenced in one's decision by any inordinate affection.

I don't read anything about myself. As a child, there was something in me that was just instinctive. I want to be clear in my spirit, and I don't want to be blocked by things that get inside of you and kill you.

I do get up in the morning and I try to spend at least half an hour meditating and reading something spiritual. I start my day with meditation and prayer, and I truly believe that all the stuff you do on the outside isn't as important as what you do on the inside.

I have a very strong spiritual base.

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.

It’s perfectly natural for me to sit down and talk about meditating and spiritual practice with my friends. But then I realize, how would it sound to a drunk cynical guy in London?

. . . in the spiritual life you must practice. And the only way to practice is by trying to solve your problems with prayer. This develops your spiritual power and it also trains you to use that spiritual power in the most effective way.

That daydreaming seemed important at the time, but when I asked my teacher Katagiri Roshi about it, he said, "Oh, it's just laziness. Get to work." But as for discipline, I don't even use that word. I think more about passion or love. What I've really learned is the way the mind moves, and how the mind works. Rather than discipline, I know how to seduce my mind.

Encountering sufferings will definitely contribute to the elevation of your spiritual practice, provided you are able to transform calamity and misfortune into the path.

Do you know that the words meditation and medicine come from the same root? Meditation is a kind of medicine; its use is only for the time being. Once you have learned the quality, then you need not do any particular meditation, then the meditation has to spread all over your life. Only when you are meditative twenty-four hours a day then can you attain, then you have attained. Even sleeping is meditation.

We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.

When you study the lives of all great achievers-those who have had the greatest influence on others, those who have made things happen-you will find a pattern. Through their persistent efforts and inner struggle, they have greatly expanded their four native human intelligences or capacities. The highest manifestations of these four intelligences are: for mental, vision; for the physical, discipline; for the emotional, passion; for the spiritual, conscience. These manifestations also represent our highest means of expressing our voice.

Daily meditation keeps me sane. I memorize prayers or poems that express my highest spiritual ideals, and quietly, word for word, go through the prayer first thing in the morning. Julian of Norwich or St. Francis or the compassionate Buddha. It's called passage meditation. You internalize the perennial philosophies.

Meditation is the alchemy of transforming. The unconscious into the conscious. It gives you a tremendous power, Far greater than anger, greed and lust.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine-and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.

It is of great importance, when we begin to practise prayer, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.

A lot of people have realized that a good spiritual practice and a good meditation practice have real benefit. It’s not just something nice to do to make the universe happy.

Truth is something which you must see immediately — and to see something clearly you must give your heart and your mind and your whole being to it immediately.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation.

PRACTICE OF THE Art of Peace enables you to rise above praise or blame, and it frees you from attachment to this and that.

Meditation is a way of moving into the unlimited dimension of who you are - it is the ultimate freedom.

Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.

Pain is a spiritual wake-up call showing you that there are oceans you have not yet explored. Step beyond the world you know. Reach for heights that you never thought possible. Go to places you have deemed off limits. This is the time to take off the shell of your past and step into the rich possibilities of your future. God does not give us dreams that we cannot fulfill. If you want to do something great with your life-whether it's to fall madly in love, become a teacher, be a great parent-if you aspire to do something beyond what you are doing now, this is the time to begin. Trust yourself.

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God.

Calmness is the criterion of spiritual progress. Plunge the purified mind into the Heart. Then the work is over.