Sharon Salzberg quotes - page 2

To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it. (Sharon Salzberg)
We can learn the art of fierce compassion - redefining strength, deconstructing isolation and renewing a sense of community, practicing letting go of rigid us-vs.-them thinking - while cultivating power and clarity in response to difficult situations. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
The middle way is a view of life that avoids the extreme of misguided grasping born of believing there is something we can find, or buy, or cling to that will not change. And it avoids the despair and nihilism born from the mistaken belief that nothing matters, that all is meaningless. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
Develop a mind so filled with love that it resembles space. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life - if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
Everyone loses touch with their aspiration, and we need the heart to return to what we really care about. All of this is based on developing greater lovingkindness and compassion. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
We like things to manifest right away, and they may not. Many times, we're just planting a seed and we don't know exactly how it is going to come to fruition. It's hard for us to realize that what we see in front of us might not be the end of the story. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
My earliest experiences in meditation were in a context of intensive retreats. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
In our usual mind state, we are continually activating the process that in Buddhist terminology is known as 'bhava,' which literally means 'becoming.' In this space of becoming, we are subtly leaning forward into the future, trying to have security based on feeling that we can hold on, we can try to keep things from changing. (Sharon Salzberg)
I call myself a meditation teacher rather than a spiritual teacher. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
To cherish others is to cherish ourselves. To cherish ourselves is to cherish others. And in that same way, we relate to the truth. If we support it, if we embrace it, if we uphold it, we will be embraced by it, we will be supported and upheld by it. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
The meditation traditions I started and have continued practicing have all emphasized inclusivity: anyone can do this who is interested. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
You don't have to believe anything, adopt a dogma in order to learn how to meditate. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
In a single moment we can understand we are not just facing a knee pain, or our discouragement and our wishing the sitting would end, but that right in the moment of seeing that knee pain, we're able to explore the teachings of the Buddha. What does it mean to have a painful experience? What does it mean to hate it, and to fear it? View quote
Sharon Salzberg
Meditation is not the construction of something foreign, it is not an effort to attain and then hold on to a particular experience. We may have a secret desire that through meditation we will accumulate a stockpile of magical experiences, or at least a mystical trophy or two, and then we will be able to proudly display them for others to see. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
We all want to be happy. We need to expand the notion of what that means, to make it bigger and wiser. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
Everyone's mind wanders, without doubt, and we always have to start over. Everyone resists or dislikes the thought of or is too tired to meditate at times, and we have to be able to begin again. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don't have enough of, or the right kind of. It's an ongoing process. The opposite of faith is despair. (Sharon Salzberg)
Doing nothing means unplugging from the compulsion to always keep ourselves busy, the habit of shielding ourselves from certain feelings, the tension of trying to manipulate our experience before we even fully acknowledge what that experience is. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
As we work to reweave the strands of connection, we can be supported by the wisdom and lovingkindness of others. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
We apply our effort to be mindful, to be aware in this very moment, right here and now, and we bring a very wholehearted effort to it. This brings concentration. It is this power of concentration that we use to cut through the world of surface appearances to get to a much deeper reality. View quote
Sharon Salzberg
While you are meditating, if your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the present moment. View quote
Sharon Salzberg