Sharon Salzberg Quotes

Everything is Song. Everything is Silence. Since it all turns out to be illusion, perfectly being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, you are free to die laughing.

Let come what comes, let go what goes. See what remains.

Surrender becomes so much easier when you realize the fleeting nature of all experiences and that the world cannot give you anything of lasting value. You then continue to meet people, to be involved in experience and activities, but without the wants and fears of the egoic self. That is to say, you no longer demand that a situation, person, place, or event should satisfy you or make you happy. It's passing and imperfect nature is allowed to be.

I don't believe people let things slide away. It's the nature of the universe that everything dissolves into oblivion and by every route possible, but human beings invest a lot of cleverness trying to cling to past events, real or imagined. And because we can't succeed, we get angry and frustrated and feel guilty. Except the Buddhists.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore.

I'm just dealing with what's happening, with what is. Joy, happiness, good, bad, all those terms are meaningless to me.

My motto is never to hold on to anything. I accept and then let go: not just the negatives, but the praise, too. Or it'll get to my head.

Life is a flux, nothing abides. Still we are such fools, we go on clinging. If change is the nature of life, then clinging is stupidity, because your clinging is not going to change the law of life. Your clinging is only going to make you miserable. Things are bound to change; whether you cling or not does not matter. If you cling you become miserable: you cling and they change, you feel frustrated. If you don't cling they still change, but then there is no frustration because you were perfectly aware that they are bound to change. This is how things are, this is the suchness of life.

Nothing belongs to me. Everything comes and goes. Serenity is an open door.

We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.

I saw that nothing was permanent. You don't want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.

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?

Unending joy is actually closer to us than our own skin, and there is nothing we have to do or get or be to experience it. All we have to do is stop driving it away.

I used to desire many, many things, but now I have just one desire, and that's to get rid of all my other desires.

There are still things I want to do but they're not necessary for me to do. I'm not clinging to anything that I can't open my hands and let go.

As human beings we have a tendency when we like something to tie it up and make sure it's there for a long time. I've been working on being able to let things go. I don't think I ever want to buy property again.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in 'renouncing' one's own self, by which I mean making up one's mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being 'happy' or 'unhappy' in the usual meaning of the words.

Everything is changing all the time, and I'm not going to stress out and spend my entire time chasing something that ultimately doesn't exist.

That non-attachment gives us the freedom to be exactly who we are.

The secret of zen is just two words: not... always... so.

Seeker, empty the boat, lighten the load, be free of craving and judgment and hatred, and feel the joy of the way.

If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?

Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, 'I have lost it' and instead say, 'It has been returned to where it came from.' Why should it be any concern of yours who gives your things back to the world that gave them to you? The important thing is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it.

At least half of your mind is always thinking, I'll be leaving; this won't last. It's a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I'm just sad.

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.