Best 414 quotes of Sharon Salzberg on MyQuotes

Cultivation of positive emotions, including self-love and self-respect, strengthens our inner resources and opens us to a broader range of thoughts and actions.

Genuine awe connects us with the world in a new way.

Even as we live with the knowledge that each day might be our last, we don’t want to believe it.

Even as we recognize our resentment, bitterness, or jealousy, we can also honor our own wish to be happy, to feel free.

Even when we do our very best to treat those close to us with utmost respect and understanding, conflict happens. That’s life. That’s human nature.

Everyone we interact with has the capacity to surprise us in an infinite number of ways. What can first open us up to each of our innate capacities for love is merely to recognize that.

Feelings of apathy as they relate to our relationships often stem from insufficiently paying attention to those around us.

For any marginalized group to change the story that society tells about them takes courage and perseverance.

Forgiveness can be bittersweet. It contains the sweetness of the release of a story that has caused us pain, but also the poignant reminder that even our dearest relationships change over the course of a lifetime.

Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.

Forgiveness is a process, an admittedly difficult one that often can feel like a rigorous spiritual practice.

Forgiveness is the way we break the grip that long-held resentments have on our hearts.

Forgiveness that is insincere, forced or premature can be more psychologically damaging than authentic bitterness & rage.

From our first breath to our last, we’re presented again and again with the opportunity to experience deep, lasting, and trans-formative connection with other beings: to love them and be loved by them; to show them our true natures and to recognize theirs.

Grief helps us to relinquish the illusion that the past could be different from what it was.

Hatred does not help us alleviate our pain even in the slightest.

I believe that there is only one kind of love—real love—trying to come alive in us despite our limiting assumptions, the distortions of our culture, and the habits of fear, self-condemnation, and isolation that we tend to acquire just by living a life.

Identifying the source of our personal narratives helps us to release its negative aspects and re-frame it in ways that promote wholeness.

If we are nothing, there is nothing at all to serve as a barrier to our boundless expression of love. Being nothing in this way, we are also, inevitably, everything. 'Everything' does not mean self-aggrandizement, but a decisive recognition of interconnection; we are not separate. Both the clear, open space of 'nothing' and the interconnected mess of 'everything' awakens us to our true nature.

If we define ourselves by each of the ever-changing feelings that cascade through us, how will we ever feel at home in our own bodies and minds?

If we harm someone else, we’re inevitably also hurting ourselves. Some quality of sensitivity and awareness has to shut down for us to be able to objectify someone else, to deny them as a living, feeling being—someone who wants to be happy, just as we do.

If we have nothing material to give, we can offer our attention, our energy, our appreciation. The world needs us. It doesn’t deplete us to give.

If we look at the force of anger, we can, in fact, discover many positive aspects in it. Anger is not a passive, complacent state. It has incredible energy. Anger can impel us to let go of ways we may be inappropriately defined by the needs of others; it can teach us to say no. In this way it also serves our integrity, because anger can motivate us to turn from the demands of the outer world to the nascent voice of our inner world. It is a way to set boundaries and to challenge injustice at every level. Anger will not take things for granted or simply accept them mindlessly. Anger also has the ability to cut through surface appearances; it does not just stay on a superficial level. It is very critical; it is very demanding. Anger has the power to pierce through the obvious to things that are more hidden. This is why anger may be transmuted to wisdom. By nature, anger has characteristics in common with wisdom. Nevertheless, the unskillful aspects of anger are immense, and they far outweigh the positive aspects.

if we really look at our actions with eyes of love, we see that our lives can be more straightforward, simpler, less sculpted by regret and fear, more in alignment with our deepest values.

If we stretch ourselves to open our minds, to see our shared humanity with others, we allow ourselves to see the existence of community and generosity in unexpected places.

If we truly loved ourselves, we’d never harm another. That is a truly revolutionary, celebratory mode of self-care.

If we turn away from our own pain, we may find ourselves projecting this aversion onto others, seeing them as somehow inadequate for being in a troubled situation.

If you do not feel any resonance with this teaching about many lifetimes, you can still understand this radical nonseparation from all who are and all that happens by looking within. Whether or not you believe in rebirth, you can see that all states exist within you. You do not need to feel separate when they arise within you; you do not need to be afraid. And you do not need to feel separate when you see them outside of yourself, either; all of it is just reflecting the mind with all of its possibilities. No matter what happens, inside or outside, no matter whom you meet, all of it is just another way of seeing yourself.

In Buddhism there is one word for mind & heart: chitta. Chitta refers not just to thoughts and emotions in the narrow sense of arising from the brain, but also to the whole range of consciousness, vast & unimpeded.

In more ways than any of us can name, love is wrapped up with the idea of expectation.

In order to do anything about the suffering of the world we must have the strength to face it without turning away.

In order to free ourselves from our assumptions about love, we must ask ourselves what long-held, often buried assumptions are and then face them, which takes courage, humility, and kindness.

In reality, love is fluid; it’s a verb, not a noun.

Instead of catching ourselves after we first felt angry, we develop a visceral sensitivity to what's happening within us in the moment & through mindfulness, we can shape our reaction right away.

Integration arises from intimacy with our emotions and our bodies, as well as with our thoughts.

It is a state of peace to be able to accept things as they are. This is to be at home in our own lives. We see that this universe is much too big to hold on to, but it is the perfect size for letting go. Our hearts and minds become that big, and we can actually let go. This is the gift of equanimity.

It is awareness of both our shared pain and our longing for happiness that links us to other people and helps us to turn toward them with compassion.

It’s affirming that we can look at any experience from the fullness of our being and get past the shame we carry.

It's tough to have an authentic relationship with awe in the age of awesome, a word that has become so overused as to be drained of its meaning.

It takes a special courage to challenge the rigid confines of our accustomed story. It’s not easy to radically alter our views about where happiness comes from but it’s eminently possible.

Just as a prism refracts light differently when you change its angle, each experience of love illuminates love in new ways, drawing from an infinite palette of patterns and hues.

Keeping secrets is a consequential act for all involved.

Laughing at your pettiness probably works better than scolding yourself for it.

Learning to treat ourselves lovingly may at first feel like a dangerous experiment.

Letting go is actually a healthy foundation upon which we can open up to real love—to giving, receiving, and experiencing it authentically and organically.

Letting go is an inside job, something only we can do for ourselves.

Living in a story of a limited self—to any degree—is not love.

Love is a living capacity within us that is always present, even when we don’t sense it.

Love is defined by difficult acts of human compassion & generosity.

Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves.