Sharon Salzberg Quotes

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.

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

The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are.

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

Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you're doing.

As we practice meditation, we get used to stillness and eventually are able to make
friends with the quietness of our sensations.

Seeing the goodness in someone does not imply ignoring their difficult qualities or unskillful actions. Rather, we can fully acknowledge these difficulties, while at the same time we choose to focus on the positive. If we focus on the negative, we will naturally feel anger, resentment or disappointment. If we focus on the positive, we will forge a connection to the person. Then as we look at their negative traits or actions, we do it as their friend. If two friends are looking at such difficult things, they do so standing side by side.
This mirroring quality, whereby we 'reteach a thing it's loveliness', is one of the greatest attributes of metta. The power of metta enables us to look at people and affirm the rightness of their wish to be happy; it affirms our oneness with them. The power of love reflects both to ourselves and others the manifold possibilities available in each moment.

There is no reason for a feeling of separation from anything or anyone, because we have been it all and done it all. How then can we feel self-righteous or removed from anyone or any action? Ther is no spot on this earth where we have not laughed, cried, been born and died. So in some sense, every single place we go is home. Everyone we meet we know. Everything that is done we are capable of.

With the practice of meditation we can develop this ability to more fully love
ourselves and to more consistently love others.

Love exists in itself, not relying on owning or being owned.

Effort is the unconstrained willingness to persevere through difficulty.

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.

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

Meditation is the ultimate mobile device; you can use it anywhere, anytime, unobtrusively.

When we don’t tell those we love about what’s really going on or listen carefully to what they have to say, we tend to fill in the blanks with stories.