Top 280 Jack Kornfield Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “It is hard to imagine a world without forgiveness. Without forgiveness life would be unbearable. Without forgiveness our lives are chained, forced to carry the sufferings of the past and repeat them with no release.”

— Jack Kornfield

52. “There are many ways up the mountain and each of us must choose a practice that feels true to our heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

53. “Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does not mean we will allow injustice again.”

— Jack Kornfield

54. “When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness.”

— Jack Kornfield

55. “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 Kornfield

56. “Whatever we cultivate in times of ease, we gather as strength for times of change.”

— Jack Kornfield

57. “Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings.”

— Jack Kornfield

58. “The work of your heart, the work of taking time, to listen, to help, is also your gift to the whole of the world.”

— Jack Kornfield

59. “It is our commitment to wholeness that matters, the willingness to unfold in every deep aspect of our being.”

— Jack Kornfield

60. “Whenever we forgive, in small ways at home, or in great ways between nations, we free ourselves from the past.”

— Jack Kornfield

61. “Within each of us there is a silence as vast as the universe. We long for it. We can return to it.”

— Jack Kornfield

62. “Strength of the Heart comes from knowing that the pain that we each must bear is part of the greater pain shared by all that lives. It is not just ‘our’ pain, but ‘the’ pain and realizing this awakens our universal compassion.”

— Jack Kornfield

63. “Wherever you are is the perfect place to awaken. This moment is the exact place to practice compassion and loving awareness. You have all the ingredients to breathe and find freedom just where you are.”

— Jack Kornfield

64. “This life is a test-it is only a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received further instructions on where to go and what to do. Remember, this life is only a test.”

— Jack Kornfield

65. “Do not be afraid to face your difficulty. Turn toward it. Lean into the wind. Hold your ground.”

— Jack Kornfield

66. “The best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own.”

— Jack Kornfield

67. “In this there is no judgment and no blame, for we seek not to perfect the world but to perfect our love for what is on this earth.”

— Jack Kornfield

68. “With mindfulness, we are learning to observe in a new way, with balance and a powerful disidentification.”

— Jack Kornfield

69. “We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.”

— Jack Kornfield

70. “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” Some.”

— Jack Kornfield

71. “Breathing meditation can quiet the mind, open the body, and develop a great power of concentration.”

— Jack Kornfield

72. “If we are engaged in actions that cause pain and conflict to ourselves and others, it is impossible for the mind to become settled, collected, and focused in meditation; it is impossible for the heart to open.”

— Jack Kornfield

73. “Though outer events may be difficult, the key to our happiness is how our mind responds to them.”

— Jack Kornfield

74. “Acceptance is not passivity. It is a courageous step in the process of transformation.”

— Jack Kornfield

75. “You need a community. They remind you when you forget, and you remind them when they forget.”

— Jack Kornfield

76. “Buddhists were actually the first cognitive-behavioral therapists.”

— Jack Kornfield

77. “Train your mind the same way you’d train a puppy: Be patient, be consistent, and have some fun along the way.”

— Jack Kornfield

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78. “May you know the beauty of your own true nature.”

— Jack Kornfield

79. “To open deeply, as genuine spiritual life requires, we need tremendous courage and strength, a kind of warrior spirit.”

— Jack Kornfield

80. “The present moment is really all that we have. The only place you can really love another person is in the present. Love in the past is a memory. Love in the future is a fantasy. To be really alive, love – or any other experience – must take place in the present.”

— Jack Kornfield

81. “When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present – our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes our love – everything that moves us most deeply.”

— Jack Kornfield

82. “When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.”

— Jack Kornfield

83. “The poet Hafiz writes, Don’t surrender your loneliness So quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you As few human Or even divine ingredients can.”

— Jack Kornfield

84. “Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it’s not like you’re going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.”

— Jack Kornfield

85. “As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.”

— Jack Kornfield

86. “Spiritual life doesn’t make you a good person; you ARE a good person, you are a holy being when you are born. What spiritual life does is remind us that this is who we really are.”

— Jack Kornfield

87. “To begin to meditate is to look into our lives with interest in kindness and discover how to be wakeful and free.”

— Jack Kornfield

88. “Even the most exalted states and the most exceptional spiritual accomplishments are unimportant if we cannot be happy in the most basic and ordinary ways, if we cannot touch one another and the life we have been given with our hearts.”

— Jack Kornfield

89. “Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.”

— Jack Kornfield

90. “Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care.”

— Jack Kornfield

91. “In all practices and traditions of freedom, we find the heart’s task to be quite simple. Life offers us just what it offers, and our task is to bow to it, to meet it with understanding and compassion.”

— Jack Kornfield

92. “Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us. Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole.”

— Jack Kornfield

93. “Indifference is a misguided way of defending ourselves.”

— Jack Kornfield

94. “For most of us, generosity is a quality that must be developed. We have to respect that it will grow gradually; otherwise our spirituality can become idealistic and imitative, acting out the image of generosity before it has become genuine.”

— Jack Kornfield

95. “When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning and the end of spiritual practice.”

— Jack Kornfield

96. “Built on the foundation of concentration is the third aspect of the Buddha’s path of awakening: clarity of vision and the development of wisdom.”

— Jack Kornfield

97. “As we step out of the way new things are born.”

— Jack Kornfield

98. “The warrior in your heart says stand your ground. Feel the survival of a thousand years of ancestors in your muscles and your blood. You have all the support you need in your bones.”

— Jack Kornfield

99. “Two qualities are at the root of all meditation development: right effort and right aim – arousing effort to aim the mind toward the object.”

— Jack Kornfield

100. “Only a deep attention to the whole of our life can bring us the capacity to love well and live freely.”

— Jack Kornfield