Sharon Salzberg Quotes

As we explore new ways of loving and being loved by others, we need to equip ourselves with open, pliant minds; we need to be willing to investigate, experiment, and evaluate as we approach a topic we thought we knew so much about.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Love simply, perpetually exists and that it’s a matter of psychic housekeeping to make room for it.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Everyone we interact with has the capacity to surprise us in an infinite number of ways. What can first open us up to each of our innate capacities for love is merely to recognize that.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When we identify the thoughts that keep us from seeing others as they truly are we prepare the ground for real love.

~ Sharon Salzberg

It's tough to have an authentic relationship with awe in the age of awesome, a word that has become so overused as to be drained of its meaning.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Setting the intention to practice kindness toward one’s partner or family members or friends does not preclude getting angry or upset.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We exercise kindness in any moment when we recognize our shared humanity—with all the hopes, dreams, joys, disappointments, vulnerability, and suffering that implies.

~ Sharon Salzberg

All of our actions can signify self-love or self-sabotage

~ Sharon Salzberg

We are born ready to love and be loved. It is our birthright.

~ Sharon Salzberg

With a clear intention and a willing spirit, sooner or later we experience the joy and freedom that arises when we recognize our common humanity with others and see that real love excludes no one.

~ Sharon Salzberg

What happens in our hearts is our field of freedom. As long as we carry old wounds and anger in our hearts, we continue to suffer. Forgiveness allows us to move on.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Though it may sound paradoxical, identifying our thoughts, emotions, and habitual patterns of behavior is the key to freedom & transformation.

~ Sharon Salzberg

No matter what we think we should do, I don’t think you can coerce yourself into loving your neighbor—or your boss—when you can’t stand him. But if you try to understand your feelings of dislike with mindfulness and compassion, being sure not to forget self-compassion, you create the possibility for change.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Awareness levels the playing field. We are all humans doing the best we can.

~ Sharon Salzberg

If we stretch ourselves to open our minds, to see our shared humanity with others, we allow ourselves to see the existence of community and generosity in unexpected places.

~ Sharon Salzberg

By practicing meditation we establish love, compassion, sympathetic joy & equanimity as our home.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Once we are honest about our feelings, we can invite ourselves to consider alternative modes of viewing our pain and can see that releasing our grip on anger and resentment can actually be an act of self-compassion.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The mind thinks thoughts that we don't plan. It's not as if we say, 'At 9:10 I'm going to be filled with self-hatred.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When we open our hearts to the breadth of our experiences, we learn to tune into our needs, unique perceptions, thoughts & feelings

~ Sharon Salzberg

You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that.

~ Sharon Salzberg

In order to free ourselves from our assumptions about love, we must ask ourselves what long-held, often buried assumptions are and then face them, which takes courage, humility, and kindness.

~ Sharon Salzberg

It takes a special courage to challenge the rigid confines of our accustomed story. It’s not easy to radically alter our views about where happiness comes from but it’s eminently possible.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Taking in another’s criticism, even when it’s offered out of love, requires courage.

~ Sharon Salzberg

At times, reality is love’s great challenge. When our old stories and dreams are shattered, our first instinct may be to resist, deny, or cling to the way things were. But if we loosen our grip, often what fills the space is a tender forgiveness and the potential for a new and different kind of love.

~ Sharon Salzberg

In reality, love is fluid; it’s a verb, not a noun.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The good news is that opportunities for love enter our lives unpredictably, whether or not we’ve perfected self-compassion or befriended our inner critic.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The simple act of being completely attentive & present to another person is an act of love, and it fosters unshakeable well-being.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it.

~ Sharon Salzberg

All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others

~ Sharon Salzberg

Like water poured from one vessel to another, metta flows freely, taking the shape of each situation without changing its essence.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We can understand the inherent radiance & purity of our minds by understanding metta. Like the mind, metta is not distorted by what it encounters.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When we practice metta, we open continuously to the truth of our actual experience, changing our relationship to life.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When emotions are long held and extremely complex, it sometimes takes years for them to enter fully into awareness.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The secure attachment of Western psychology is actually akin to Buddhist non-attachment, avoid-ant attachment is the inverse of being mindful and present, and anxious attachment aligns with Buddhist notions of clinging and grasping.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The practice of loving-kindness is about cultivating love as a trans-formative strength

~ Sharon Salzberg

Kindness is not a fixed trait that we either have or lack, but more like a muscle that can be developed and strengthened.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When we learn to respond to disappointments with acceptance, we give ourselves the space to realize that all our experiences—good and bad alike—are opportunities to learn and grow.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Loving ourselves calls us to give up the illusion that we can control everything and focuses us on building our inner resource of resilience.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Loving-kindness challenges those states that tend to arise when we think of ourselves as isolated from everyone else—fear, a sense of deficiency, alienation, loneliness.

~ Sharon Salzberg