Jack Kornfield Quotations

Nobody knows why they were born or where they come from.

No one knows how this world came into being. It is a creation of consciousness itself. It's extraordinary, a mystery.

Some other people think that awakened consciousness is really about fullness or presence, being completely present for every moment, but these experiences are only one of the dimensions of awakened consciousness. Understanding these different dimensions as facets of awakening can help with the confusion surrounding the different spiritual paths. They're not leading to different places, but rather reflect the luminous and liberated aspects of consciousness itself. These qualities are not far away; in fact, they are right here.

Whatever you believe cosmologically, we all know the tears of the world. We each carry a certain measure of those tears in our hearts.

When you rest in presence and pure awareness, sometimes everything is experienced as love because you're connected with all that is, and love is simply the nature of being.

Use whatever has come to awaken patience, understanding, and love.

Of course, you play the game of life because you got to be incarnated.

You are the mystery incarnating itself, and it's beautiful when you remember. It's also painful and awesome and it contains unbearable beauty and unfathomable pain - the ocean of tears and galaxy of bliss. I don't say that lightly, but it's what we have.

Each moment of every day is new and then it vanishes. Where is that day? Where is that moment?

The awakened heart and mind can be experienced as clarity itself, pure knowing.