Quotes by Sharon Salzberg

As human beings, we’re capable of greatness of spirit, an ability to go beyond the circumstances we find ourselves in, to experience a vast sense of connection to all of life.

Our minds tend to race ahead into the future or replay the past, but our bodies are always in the present moment.

The skills available to us through mindfulness make it possible to bring love to our connections with others.

What we learn in meditation, we can apply to all other realms of our lives.

Keeping secrets is a consequential act for all involved.

The environment we create can help heal us or fracture us. This is true not just for buildings and landscapes but also for interactions and relationships.

So often, fear keeps us from being able to say yes to love—perhaps our greatest challenge as human beings.

Learning to treat ourselves lovingly may at first feel like a dangerous experiment.

By accepting and learning to embrace the inevitable sorrows of life, we realize that we can experience a more enduring sense of happiness.

The journey to loving ourselves doesn’t mean we like everything.

When we direct a lot of hostile energy toward the inner critic, we enter into a losing battle.

When we approach the journey acknowledging what we do not know and what we can’t control, we maintain our energy for the quest.

When we relate to ourselves with loving kindness, perfectionism naturally drops away.

Wholehearted acceptance is a basic element of love, starting with love for ourselves, and a gateway to joy. Through the practices of loving kindness and self-compassion, we can learn to love our flawed and imperfect selves. And in those moments of vulnerability, we open our hearts to connect with each other, as well. We are not perfect, but we are enough.

When we contemplate the miracle of embodied life, we begin to partner with our bodies in a kinder way.

Wherever the responsibility lies, shame creates a solid and terrible feeling of unworthiness that resides in our bodies: the storehouse of the memories of our acts, real or imagined, and the secrets we keep about them.

The heart contracts when our bodies are overcome by shame.

Shame weakens us. It can make us frightened to take on something new. We start to withdraw from whatever might give us pleasure, self-esteem, or a sense of our value.

To imagine the way we think is the singular causative agent of all we go through is to practice cruelty toward ourselves.

It’s affirming that we can look at any experience from the fullness of our being and get past the shame we carry.