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" In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence - ignorance... about the separation of self and other... about the consequences of our actions. "

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" I think so many people tend to think of faith as blind adherence to a dogma or unquestioned surrender to an authority figure, and the result is losing self-respect and losing our own sense of what is true. And I don't think of faith in those terms at all. "

Sharon Salzberg

Faith

Losing

People

" Chanting is a simple practice. When you notice you are thinking about something else during the chant, let go of the thought and come back home, to the chant, to that place where we are expressing our inner purity. "

" In our own lives and in our communities, we need to find a way to include others rather than exclude them. We need to find a way to allow our pain and suffering, individually and collectively. "

" It is so powerful when we can leave behind our ordinary identities, no longer think of ourselves primarily as a conductor, or writer, or salesclerk, and go to a supportive environment to deeply immerse in meditation practice. "

" In our usual mind state, we are continually activating the process that in Buddhist terminology is known as 'bhava,' which literally means 'becoming.' In this space of becoming, we are subtly leaning forward into the future, trying to have security based on feeling that we can hold on, we can try to keep things from changing. "

" We all want to be happy. We need to expand the notion of what that means, to make it bigger and wiser. "

" As we hone the ability to let go of distraction, to begin again without rancor or judgment, we are deepening forgiveness and compassion for ourselves. And in life, we find we might make a mistake, and more easily begin again, or stray from our chosen course and begin again. "

" I call myself a meditation teacher rather than a spiritual teacher. "

" Voting is like alchemy - taking an abstract value and breathing life into it. "

" Love and compassion don't at all have to make us weak, or lead us to losing discernment and vision. We just have to learn how to find them. And see, in truth, what they bring us. "

" The middle way is a view of life that avoids the extreme of misguided grasping born of believing there is something we can find, or buy, or cling to that will not change. And it avoids the despair and nihilism born from the mistaken belief that nothing matters, that all is meaningless. "

" We think of ourselves as our titles or our jobs or our position in a family. We depend on being praised by others. But something happens when that praise is undermined. "

" We are taught that revenge is strong and compassion is weak. We are taught that power is more important than love. "

" In a single moment we can understand we are not just facing a knee pain, or our discouragement and our wishing the sitting would end, but that right in the moment of seeing that knee pain, we're able to explore the teachings of the Buddha. What does it mean to have a painful experience? What does it mean to hate it, and to fear it? "

" We apply our effort to be mindful, to be aware in this very moment, right here and now, and we bring a very wholehearted effort to it. This brings concentration. It is this power of concentration that we use to cut through the world of surface appearances to get to a much deeper reality. "

" At times when I am myself sitting at a retreat, and at the end I get into my car to drive away, I watch my hand move forward to turn on the radio. When I can be mindful, I notice the fact that I actually don't want in that moment to listen to the news or hear some music. "

" What is important is not getting intoxicated with a good feeling or getting intoxicated even with an insight. These take many forms in our practice. We go through times of great release, where there has been physical holding for what feels like forever, and something opens up and releases. "

" I've always said that lovingkindness and compassion are inevitably woven throughout meditation practice even if the words are never used or implied, no matter what technique or method we are using. "

" When we see the relatedness of ourselves to the universe, that we do not live as isolated entities, untouched by what is going on around us, not affecting what is going on around us, when we see through that, that we are interrelated, then we can see that to protect others is to protect ourselves, and to protect ourselves is to protect others. "

Sharon Salzberg

Others

Protect

" To cherish others is to cherish ourselves. To cherish ourselves is to cherish others. And in that same way, we relate to the truth. If we support it, if we embrace it, if we uphold it, we will be embraced by it, we will be supported and upheld by it. "

" There are many different ways to practice meditation; it's good to experiment until you find one that seems to suit you. "

" Things don't just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don't live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be. "

" We come to meditation to learn how not to act out the habitual tendencies we generally live by - those actions that create suffering for ourselves and others, and get us into so much trouble. "

Sharon Salzberg

Create

Suffering

" My earliest experiences in meditation were in a context of intensive retreats. "

" Protection, as we use the word in Buddhism, is actually wisdom, it's insight. Protection is seeing and knowing deeply that all things in our experience arise due to causes, due to conditions coming together in a certain way. "

" Some people have a mistaken idea that all thoughts disappear through meditation and we enter a state of blankness. There certainly are times of great tranquility when concentration is strong and we have few, if any, thoughts. But other times, we can be flooded with memories, plans or random thinking. It's important not to blame yourself. "

" Everyone's mind wanders, without doubt, and we always have to start over. Everyone resists or dislikes the thought of or is too tired to meditate at times, and we have to be able to begin again. "

" Doing nothing means unplugging from the compulsion to always keep ourselves busy, the habit of shielding ourselves from certain feelings, the tension of trying to manipulate our experience before we even fully acknowledge what that experience is. "

" My ideal registration system would be an opt-out one, where every single person is registered once they turn 18. In Australia, I'm told, everyone is registered to vote and you pay a fine if you don't vote. "

" Even on the spiritual path, we have things we'll tend to cover up or be in denial about. "