Sharon Salzberg famous quotes

03-25-2025

It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. Its never too late to take a moment to look.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Running #Dark #Meditation Practice
We can travel a long way in life and do many things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. it is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Life #Letting Go #Home
The critical element in meditation practice is beginning again. Everyone loses focus at times, everyone loses interest at times, and everyone gets distracted over and over again. What is essential, and also incredibly transforming, is realizing that we have the ability to begin again, without blaming or judging ourselves, without thinking we have failed, without losing heart, we can, and need to, constantly be beginning again.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Yoga #Heart #Thinking
The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Differences #Attention #Misery
Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Inspirational #Life #Change
Meditation is not a matter of trying to stop thinking or make your mind go blank but rather to realize when your attention is wandering and to simply let go of the thoughts and begin again. It is a way of changing our relationship to our thoughts, so we're not so consumed by them, with no sense of space. Having a newly spacious relationship to our thoughts brings both peace and freedom.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Letting Go #Thinking #Space
We need the courage to learn from our past and not live in it.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Buddhist #Past #Needs
We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Motivational #Growth #Grows
Whatever life presents us, our response can be an expression of our compassion.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Compassion #Expression #Response
Often we can achieve an even better result when we stumble yet are willing to start over, when we don't give up after a mistake, when something doesn't come easily but we throw ourselves into trying, when we're not afraid to appear less than perfectly polished.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Giving Up #Mistake #Don't Give Up
True happiness is born of letting go of what is unnecessary.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Happiness #Letting Go #Unnecessary
Meditation is essentially training our attention so that we can be more aware— not only of our own inner workings but also of what’s happening around us in the here & now.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Meditation #Training #Attention
Meditation isn’t about what’s happening; it’s about how you relate to what’s happening.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Meditation #Relate #Happenings
Distraction wastes our energy, concentration restores it.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Energy #Waste #Distraction
While you are meditating, if your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the present moment.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Mind #Moments #Wander
By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Home #Compassion #Meditation
Restore your attention or bring it to a new level by dramatically slowing down whatever you're doing.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Meditation #Mindfulness #Attention
If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you'll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Loneliness #Heart #World
In a situation of potential conflict, let compassion guide you.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Compassion #Conflict #Guides
When you're wide open, the world is a good place.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#World #Good Place #Wide
We can't control what thoughts and emotions arise within us, nor can we control the universal truth that everything changes. But we can learn to step back and rest in the awareness of what's happening. That awareness can be our refuge.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Truth #Learning #Steps
Meditation teaches us to focus and to pay clear attention to our experiences and responses as they arise, and to observe them without judging them.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Judging #Focus #Meditation
Meditation clarifies our minds and opens our hearts, and brings us to unusual depth and stability of happiness, whatever life brings.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Heart #Meditation #Mind
Meditation may be done in silence & stillness, by using voice & sound, or by engaging the body in movement. All forms emphasize the training of attention.
-- Sharon Salzberg

#Voice #Silence #Meditation

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