We’ve sourced some of the most interesting and thought-provoking Sharon Salzberg Quotes. Each of the following quotes is overflowing with creativity, and knowledge.
Develop a mind so filled with love that it resembles space.
I had a very turbulent and painful childhood, like many people. I left for college when I was 16 years old and up until that point I’d lived in five different family configurations. Each one ended or changed through a death or some terrible loss.
The moment that we realize our attention has wandered is the magic moment of the practice, because that’s the moment we have the chance to be really different. Instead of judging ourselves, and berating ourselves, and condemning ourselves, we can be gentle with ourselves.
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.
We come to meditation to learn how not to act out the habitual tendencies we generally live by – those actions that create suffering for ourselves and others, and get us into so much trouble.
I think the associations people have with kindness are often things like meekness and sweetness and maybe sickly sweetness; whereas I do think of kindness as a force, as a power.
Compassion isn’t morose; it’s something replenishing and opening; that’s why it makes us happy.
We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.
It’s difficult to admit to ourselves that we suffer. We feel humiliated, like we should have been able to control our pain. If someone else is suffering, we like to tuck them away, out of sight. It’s a cruel, cruel conditioning. There is no controlling the unfolding of life.
What is important is not getting intoxicated with a good feeling or getting intoxicated even with an insight. These take many forms in our practice. We go through times of great release, where there has been physical holding for what feels like forever, and something opens up and releases.
I’ve always said that lovingkindness and compassion are inevitably woven throughout meditation practice even if the words are never used or implied, no matter what technique or method we are using.
We need to redefine community and find a variety of ways of coming together and helping each other.
I’ve spent quite a bit of my life as a meditation teacher and writer commending the strengths of love and compassion.
Someone who has experienced trauma also has gifts to offer all of us – in their depth, their knowledge of our universal vulnerability, and their experience of the power of compassion.
Develop a mind so filled with love that it resembles space.
Everyone loses touch with their aspiration, and we need the heart to return to what we really care about. All of this is based on developing greater lovingkindness and compassion.
If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you’ll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness.
We can always begin again.
It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice.
Once in a while, you have to let your mind just go.
Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country and this world.
Chanting is a simple practice. When you notice you are thinking about something else during the chant, let go of the thought and come back home, to the chant, to that place where we are expressing our inner purity.
It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice.
We apply our effort to be mindful, to be aware in this very moment, right here and now, and we bring a very wholehearted effort to it. This brings concentration. It is this power of concentration that we use to cut through the world of surface appearances to get to a much deeper reality.
Voting is like alchemy – taking an abstract value and breathing life into it.
We are taught that revenge is strong and compassion is weak. We are taught that power is more important than love.
If we have a very strong commitment, so that we can trust ourselves and be beacons of trust for others no matter what the circumstance, then we’re protected from suffering the consequences of many actions. We can be protected from that pain.
We apply our effort to be mindful, to be aware in this very moment, right here and now, and we bring a very wholehearted effort to it. This brings concentration. It is this power of concentration that we use to cut through the world of surface appearances to get to a much deeper reality.
Compassion isn’t morose; it’s something replenishing and opening; that’s why it makes us happy.
What you learn about pain in formal meditation can help you relate to it in your daily life.
I think we spend so much of our lives trying to pretend that we know what’s going to happen next. In fact we don’t. To recognize that we don’t know even what will happen this afternoon and yet having the courage to move forward – that’s one meaning of faith.
When you’re wide open, the world is a good place.
As we work to reweave the strands of connection, we can be supported by the wisdom and lovingkindness of others.
Someone who has experienced trauma also has gifts to offer all of us – in their depth, their knowledge of our universal vulnerability, and their experience of the power of compassion.
In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence – ignorance… about the separation of self and other… about the consequences of our actions.
Everyone’s mind wanders, without doubt, and we always have to start over. Everyone resists or dislikes the thought of or is too tired to meditate at times, and we have to be able to begin again.
Protection, as we use the word in Buddhism, is actually wisdom, it’s insight. Protection is seeing and knowing deeply that all things in our experience arise due to causes, due to conditions coming together in a certain way.
Even on the spiritual path, we have things we’ll tend to cover up or be in denial about.
It’s interesting that people bring different things to oppressive and difficult situations, when they’re reduced to the barest terms of survival. That’s what provides tension in a lot of films.
Patience doesn’t mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that’s unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with.
From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life – if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters.
The meditation traditions I started and have continued practicing have all emphasized inclusivity: anyone can do this who is interested.
You don’t have to believe anything, adopt a dogma in order to learn how to meditate.
Voting is like alchemy – taking an abstract value and breathing life into it.
What you learn about pain in formal meditation can help you relate to it in your daily life.
In our own lives and in our communities, we need to find a way to include others rather than exclude them. We need to find a way to allow our pain and suffering, individually and collectively.
Things don’t just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don’t live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be.
We live in this world of great promise, where everything seems to offer an unchanging final happiness, if we can only get enough of it. It is very intoxicating.
From the Buddhist point of view, it is true that emptiness is a characteristic of all of life – if we look carefully at any experience we will find transparency, insubstantiality, with no solid, unchanging core to our experience. But that does not mean that nothing matters.
Faith is not a commodity that you either have or don’t have enough of, or the right kind of. It’s an ongoing process. The opposite of faith is despair.
We need the compassion and the courage to change the conditions that support our suffering. Those conditions are things like ignorance, bitterness, negligence, clinging, and holding on.
To remember non-attachment is to remember what freedom is all about. If we get attached, even to a beautiful state of being, we are caught, and ultimately we will suffer. We work to observe anything that comes our way, experience it while it is here, and be able to let go of it.
We all want to be happy. We need to expand the notion of what that means, to make it bigger and wiser.
We can learn the art of fierce compassion – redefining strength, deconstructing isolation and renewing a sense of community, practicing letting go of rigid us-vs.-them thinking – while cultivating power and clarity in response to difficult situations.
I think so many people tend to think of faith as blind adherence to a dogma or unquestioned surrender to an authority figure, and the result is losing self-respect and losing our own sense of what is true. And I don’t think of faith in those terms at all.
I’ve always said that lovingkindness and compassion are inevitably woven throughout meditation practice even if the words are never used or implied, no matter what technique or method we are using.
I think the associations people have with kindness are often things like meekness and sweetness and maybe sickly sweetness; whereas I do think of kindness as a force, as a power.
The middle way is a view of life that avoids the extreme of misguided grasping born of believing there is something we can find, or buy, or cling to that will not change. And it avoids the despair and nihilism born from the mistaken belief that nothing matters, that all is meaningless.
My ideal registration system would be an opt-out one, where every single person is registered once they turn 18. In Australia, I’m told, everyone is registered to vote and you pay a fine if you don’t vote.
The moment that we realize our attention has wandered is the magic moment of the practice, because that’s the moment we have the chance to be really different. Instead of judging ourselves, and berating ourselves, and condemning ourselves, we can be gentle with ourselves.
My earliest experiences in meditation were in a context of intensive retreats.
It is sometimes difficult to view compassion and loving kindness as the strengths they are.
You don’t have to believe anything, adopt a dogma in order to learn how to meditate.
Sometimes people don’t trust the force of kindness. They think love or compassion or kindness will make you weak and kind of stupid and people will take advantage of you; you won’t stand up for other people.
I’ve spent quite a bit of my life as a meditation teacher and writer commending the strengths of love and compassion.
We like things to manifest right away, and they may not. Many times, we’re just planting a seed and we don’t know exactly how it is going to come to fruition. It’s hard for us to realize that what we see in front of us might not be the end of the story.
We live in this world of great promise, where everything seems to offer an unchanging final happiness, if we can only get enough of it. It is very intoxicating.
My ideal registration system would be an opt-out one, where every single person is registered once they turn 18. In Australia, I’m told, everyone is registered to vote and you pay a fine if you don’t vote.
I had a very turbulent and painful childhood, like many people. I left for college when I was 16 years old and up until that point I’d lived in five different family configurations. Each one ended or changed through a death or some terrible loss.
We can always begin again.
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.
We are taught that revenge is strong and compassion is weak. We are taught that power is more important than love.
As we hone the ability to let go of distraction, to begin again without rancor or judgment, we are deepening forgiveness and compassion for ourselves. And in life, we find we might make a mistake, and more easily begin again, or stray from our chosen course and begin again.
Doing nothing means unplugging from the compulsion to always keep ourselves busy, the habit of shielding ourselves from certain feelings, the tension of trying to manipulate our experience before we even fully acknowledge what that experience is.
Even on the spiritual path, we have things we’ll tend to cover up or be in denial about.
