Sharon Salzberg Quotes

Seeking is endless. It never comes to a state of rest; it never ceases.

It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view.

When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades.

The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before.

Its never too late to take a moment to look.

We have the power to improve our work lives immeasurably through awareness, compassion, patience & ingenuity.

In those moments when we realize how much we cannot control, we can learn to let go.

The fulfillment we have in owning, in desiring, is temporary and illusory, because there is nothing at all we can have that we will not lose eventually. And so there is always fear.

If you’re reading these words, perhaps it’s because something has kicked open the door for you, and you’re ready to embrace change. It isn’t enough to appreciate change from afar, or only in the abstract, or as something that can happen to other people but not to you. We need to create change for ourselves, in a workable way, as part of our everyday lives.

All forms of meditation strengthen & direct our attention through the cultivation of three key skills: concentration, mindfulness & compassion or lovingkindness.

Cultivating loving kindness for ourselves is the foundation of real love for our friends and family, for new people we encounter in our daily lives, for all beings and for life itself.

This vision is always available to us; it doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, or a week, or ten thousand years — we turn on the light and it is illumined. Once we contact our capacity for love and happiness — the good — the light has been turned on. Practicing the brahma-viharas is a way of turning on the light and then tending it. It is a process of deep spiritual transformation.

Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain & other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress & yet not be overwhelmed by it.

The foundation of metta practice is to know how to be our own friend. According to the Buddha, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Metta sees truly that our integrity is inviolate, no matter what our life situation may be. We do not need to fear anything. We are whole: our deepest happiness is intrinsic to the nature of our minds, and it is not damaged through uncertainty and change.

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.

The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.

Self-compassion is like a muscle. The more we practice flexing it, especially when life doesn’t go exactly according to plan (a frequent scenario for most of us), the stronger and more resilient our compassion muscle becomes.