Quotes by Sharon Salzberg

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection

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.

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.

Smiling at someone can have significant health consequences.

Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves & others.

When you recognize and reflect on even one good thing about yourself, you are building a bridge to a place of kindness and caring.

Never feel ashamed of your longing for happiness.

Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.

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

The idea that traumatic residues—or unresolved stories—can be inherited is groundbreaking.

The unconscious mind is a vast repository of experiences and associations that sorts things out much faster than the slow-moving conscious mind.

The practice of sympathetic joy is rooted in inner development. It’s not a matter of learning techniques to “make friends and influence people.” Instead, we build the foundations of our own happiness. When our own cup is full, we more easily share it with others.

Sometimes people in abusive situations think they’re responsible for the other person’s happiness or that they’re going to fix them and make them feel better. The practice of equanimity teaches that it’s not all up to you to make someone else happy.

Buddhism has a term for the happiness we feel at someone else’s success or good fortune. Sympathetic joy, as it is known, invites us to celebrate for others.

Even as we recognize our resentment, bitterness, or jealousy, we can also honor our own wish to be happy, to feel free.

The more we identify and acknowledge moments when we’re unable to share in someone else’s pleasure and ask ourselves whether another person’s happiness truly jeopardizes our own, the more we pave the way for experiencing sympathetic joy

The more we practice sympathetic joy, the more we come to realize that the happiness we share with others is inseparable from our own happiness.

It is awareness of both our shared pain and our longing for happiness that links us to other people and helps us to turn toward them with compassion.

The difference between a life laced through with frustration and one sustained by happiness depends on whether it is motivated by self-hatred or by real love for oneself.

When we can step back even briefly from our hurt, sorrow, and anger, when we put our faith in the possibility of change, we create the possibility for non-judgmental inquiry that aims for healing rather than victory.