Top 280 Jack Kornfield Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “There is no higher happiness than peace.”

— Jack Kornfield

102. “Free your heart. Travel like the moon among the stars. – BUDDHA.”

— Jack Kornfield

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

— Jack Kornfield

104. “May I be a guard for those who need protection; a guide for those on the path; a boat, a raft, a bridge for those to cross the flood; may I be a lamp in the darkness; a resting place for the weary, and a healing medicine for all who are sick. For as long as Earth and sky endure, may I assist until all living beings are awakened.”

— Jack Kornfield

105. “In a society that almost demands life at double time, speed and addictions numb us to our own experience. In such a society, it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or the earth where we live.”

— Jack Kornfield

106. “Your happiness and suffering depend on your actions and not on my wishes for you.”

— Jack Kornfield

107. “Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?”

— Jack Kornfield

108. “When attachment arises in the place of love, it sees the other as separate; it grasps and needs. Attachment is conditional; it seeks control and it fear loss. Ask your heart if attachment has replaced love. If we speak to our heart, it will always tell us the truth.”

— Jack Kornfield

109. “To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.”

— Jack Kornfield

110. “We can struggle with what is. We can judge and blame others or ourselves. Or we can accept what cannot be changed. Peace comes from an honorable and open heart accepting what is true. Do we want to remain stuck? Or to release the fearful sense of self and rest kindly where we are?”

— Jack Kornfield

111. “The grief we carry is part of the grief of the world. Hold it gently. Let it be honored. You do not have to keep it in anymore. You can let go into the heart of compassion; you can weep.”

— Jack Kornfield

112. “According to Buddhist scriptures, compassion is the “quivering of the pure heart” when we have allowed ourselves to be touched by the pain of life.”

— Jack Kornfield

113. “The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.”

— Jack Kornfield

114. “We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing.”

— Jack Kornfield

115. “As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn puts it, “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who among us is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?”

— Jack Kornfield

116. “The questions asked at the end of lie are very simple ones: Did I love well? Did I love the people around me, my community, the earth, in a deep way? And perhaps, Did I live fully? Did I offer myself to life?”

— Jack Kornfield

117. “We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart.”

— Jack Kornfield

118. “The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to.”

— Jack Kornfield

119. “We note feelings and find that they last for only a few seconds. We pay attention to thoughts and find that they are ephemeral, that they come and go, uninvited, like clouds.”

— Jack Kornfield

120. “What we seek is what we are.”

— Jack Kornfield

121. “To bow to the fact of our life’s sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.”

— Jack Kornfield

122. “As we follow a genuine path of practice, our sufferings may seem to increase because we no longer hide from them or from ourselves. When we do not follow the old habits of fantasy and escape, we are left facing the actual problems and contradictions of our life.”

— Jack Kornfield

123. “In deep self acceptance, grows a compassionate understanding.”

— Jack Kornfield

124. “There is a web of life into which we are born, from which we can never fall.”

— Jack Kornfield

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

— Jack Kornfield

126. “You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.”

— Jack Kornfield

127. “The Sufis have a saying: “Praise Allah, and tie your camel to a post.” This brings together both parts of practice: pray, yes, but also make sure that you do what is necessary in the world.”

— Jack Kornfield

128. “The adult brain and nervous system grow and change throughout our lives. Until the very end, we are neurologically transformed by whatever we practice. We are not limited by the past.”

— Jack Kornfield

129. “The focusing of attention on the breath is perhaps the most universal of the many hundreds of meditation subjects used worldwide.”

— Jack Kornfield

130. “There are several different kinds of painful feelings that we might experience, and learning to distinguish and relate to these feelings of discomfort or pain is an important part of meditation practice, because it is one of the very first things that we open to as our practice develops.”

— Jack Kornfield

131. “But forgiveness is the act of not putting anyone out of your heart, even those who are acting out of deep ignorance or out of confusion and pain.”

— Jack Kornfield

132. “Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring for them in a flexible and wise way. In meditation, we pay attention to our body with care and respect.”

— Jack Kornfield

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

— Jack Kornfield

134. “In Buddhist practice, the outward and inward aspects of taking the one seat meet on our meditation cushion.”

— Jack Kornfield

135. “Because love, compassion, and joy can lead to excessive attachment, their warmth needs to be balanced with equanimity. Because equanimity can lead to excessive detachment, its coolness needs to be balanced with love, compassion, and joy. Established together, these radiant qualities express mental harmony.”

— Jack Kornfield

136. “When we let ourselves feel the fear, the discontent, the difficulties we have always avoided, our heart softens. Just as it is a courageous act to face all the difficulties from which we have always run, it is also an act of compassion.”

— Jack Kornfield

137. “The problem with desire is that you do not desire deeply enough! Why not desire it all? You don’t like what you have and want what you don’t have. Simply reverse this. Want what you have and don’t want what you don’t have. Here you will find true fulfillment.”

— Jack Kornfield

138. “It’s not about you. It’s about us. Life is difficult for everyone.”

— Jack Kornfield

139. “When we have for so long been judged by everyone we meet, just to look into the eyes of another who does not judge us can be extraordinarily healing.”

— Jack Kornfield

140. “Beneath the sophistication of Buddhist psychology lies the simplicity of compassion. We can touch into this compassion whenever the mind is quiet, whenever we allow the heart to open.”

— Jack Kornfield

141. “The independence and rebelliousness of our adolescence offer us yet another quality essential to our practice; the insistence that we find out the truth for ourselves, accepting no one’s word above our own experience.”

— Jack Kornfield

142. “Meditation practice is neither holding on nor avoiding; it is a settling back into the moment, opening to what is there.”

— Jack Kornfield

143. “When we feel anger toward someone, we can consider that they are a being just like us, who has faced much suffering in life.”

— Jack Kornfield

144. “The path of awakening begins with a step the Buddha called right understanding.”

— Jack Kornfield

145. “Love says, ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says, ‘I am nothing.’ Between these two my life flows.”

— Jack Kornfield

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

— Jack Kornfield

147. “To live in this precious animal body on this earth is as great a part of spiritual life as anything else.”

— Jack Kornfield

148. “In this world there are two great sources of strength. One rests with those who are not afraid to kill. The other rests with those who are not afraid to love.”

— Jack Kornfield

149. “To understand ourselves and our life is the point of insight meditation: to understand and to be free.”

— Jack Kornfield

150. “Mindfulness and fearless presence bring true protection. When we meet the world with recognition, acceptance, investigation, and non-identification, we discover that wherever we are, freedom is possible, just as the rain falls on and nurtures all things equally.”

— Jack Kornfield