582 Quotes by Sharon Salzberg

You should never use the word Karma when talking about someone else, it’s only a concept you should apply to yourself as a matter of investigation.

When you’re wide open, the world is a good place.

The Buddha taught that we can feel pleasure fully, yet without craving or clinging, without defining it as our ultimate happiness. We can feel pain fully without condemning or hating it. And we can experience neutral events by being fully present, so that they are not just fill-in times until something more exciting comes along.

What’s really transformative is our willingness to keep going, our openness to possibility, our patience, our effort, our humor, our growing self-knowledge, and the strength that we gain as we keep going.

Mindfulness allows us to watch our thoughts, see how one thought leads to the next, decide if we’re heading down an unhealthy path, and, if so, let go and change directions.

There is no ‘thing’ to let go of, but a concept, an idea of an ego that burdens us. As soon as we posit a ‘thing’ to let go of, we’re in trouble. We need to change our view of reality, not attack a nonexistent entity.

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.

When we respond to our pain and suffering with love, understanding, and acceptance – for ourselves, as well as others – over time, we can let go of our anger, even when we’ve been hurt to the core. But that doesn’t mean we ever forget.

The Dalai Lama has said: “My religion is kindness.” If we all adopted such a stance and embodied it in thought and action, inner and outer peace would be immediate, for in reality they are never not present, only obscured, waiting to be discovered. This is the work and the power of lovingkindness, the embrace that allows no separation between self, others, and events – the affirmation and honoring of a core goodness in others and in oneself.