Jack Kornfield Self Quotations

The best of modern therapy is much like a process of shared meditation, where therapist and client sit together, learning to pay close attention to those aspects and dimensions of the self that the client may be unable to touch on his or her own.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

Our ideas of self are created by identification. The less we cling to ideas of self, the freer and happier we will be.

In deep self-acceptance grows a compassionate understanding. As one Zen master said when I asked if he ever gets angry, 'Of course I get angry, but then a few minutes later I say to myself, 'What's the use of this,' and I let it go.'

Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.

When we struggle to change ourselves we, in fact, only continue the patterns of self-judgement and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive.

We can struggle with what is. We can judge and blame others or ourselves. Or we can accept what cannot be changed. Peace comes from an honorable and open heart accepting what is true. Do we want to remain stuck? Or to release the fearful sense of self and rest kindly where we are?

In deep self acceptance, grows a compassionate understanding.

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.