582 Quotes by Sharon Salzberg

By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we’re more likely to be changed by it.

Our can-do culture has made many of us believe that we should always be self-sufficient. Somewhere along the way, we also got the message that asking for help is a sign of weakness. We often forget that we’re interdependent creatures whose very existence depends on the kindness of others, including – with a bow to Tennessee Williams – strangers.

As we look around, it’s very clear that in this world people do outrageous things to one another all of the time. It’s not that these qualities or actions make us bad people, but they bring tremendous suffering if we don’t know how to work with them.

Training attention through meditation opens our eyes.

If I am feeling stupid, angry, jealous, or humiliated, I bring total awareness and acknowledgment to those feelings. I admit my failures and own them. Then I usually start laughing as I realize how small and inconsequential I really am and also how ridiculous my problems are!

Meditation can be a refuge, but it is not a practice in which real life is ever excluded. The strength of mindfulness is that it enables us to hold difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way – with awareness, balance, and love.

Desire- grasping, clinging, greed, attachment – is a state of mind that defines what we think we need in order to be happy. We project all of our hopes and dreams of fulfillment onto some object of our attention. This may be a certain activity or outcome, a particular thing or person. Deluded by our temporary enchantment, we view the world with tunnel vision. That object, and that alone, will make us happy.

I need to start over. I can’t just stay stuck in this place.” This is a wonderful skill to bring to your life.

We can always begin again.