Sylvia Boorstein > Quotes

“Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Don't Just Do Something, Sit There: A Mindfulness Retreat with Sylvia Boorstein – A Down-to-Earth Guide to Meditation and Being for Calm, Clarity, and Joy

“Life is painful, suffering is optional.”
― Sylvia Boorstein PhD

“... every single act we do has the potential of causing pain, and every single thing we do has consequences that echo way beyond what we can imagine. It doesn't mean we shouldn't act. It means we should act carefully. Everything matters [p. 41].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“All losses are sad. The end of an important relationship is also a death. When people fall out of love with each other, or when what seemed like a solid friendship falls into ruin, the hope for a shared future--a hope that provided a context and a purpose to life--is gone. [p. 149]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“The mind is like tofu. It tastes like whatever you marinate it in.”
― Sylvia Boorstein

“Pain is inevitable; lives come with pain. Suffering is not inevitable. If suffering is what happens when we struggle with our experience because of our inability to accept it, then suffering is an optional extra [p. 19].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“May I meet this moment fully. May I meet it as a friend.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“May I feel contented and safe.
May I feel protected and pleased.
May my physical body support me with strength.
May my life unfold smoothly with ease. [p. 71]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“... the moment in which the mind acknowledge 'This isn't what I wanted, but it's what I got' is the point at which suffering disappears. Sadness might remain present, but the mind ... is free to console, free to support the mind's acceptance of the situation, free to allow space for new possibilities to come into view. [p. 29]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“... freedom of choice is possible. Life is going to unfold however it does: pleasant or unpleasant, disappointing or thrilling, expected or unexpected, all of the above! What a relief it would be to know that whatever wave comes along, we can ride it out with grace [p. 35].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“I want to feel deeply, and whenever I am brokenhearted I emerge more compassionate. I think I allow myself to be brokenhearted more easily, knowing I won't be irrevocably shattered [p. 59]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... you are in pain. Relax. Take a breath. Let's pay attention to what is happening. Then we'll figure out what to do. [p. 10]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“Everything is always changing.
"There is a cause-and-effect lawfulness that governs all unfolding experience.
"What I do matters, but I am not in charge. Suffering results from struggling with what is beyond my control. [pp. 27-28]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“The Buddha taught complete honesty, with the extra instruction that everything a person says should be truthful and helpful.”
― Sylvia Boorstein

“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn't more complicated that that.
It is opening to or recieving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it. ”
― Sylvia Boorstein

“Becoming aware of fragility, of temporality, of the fact that we will surely all be lost to one another, sooner or later, mandates a clear imperative to be totally kind and loving to each other always [p.119].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Some of my most precious moments of insight have been those in which I have seen clearly that gratitude is the only possible response." (Sylvia Boorstein, from "You Don't Look Buddhist")”
― Sylvia Boorstein

“... change and loss and sadness and grief are the shared lot of all human beings ... we are all making our way from one end of life to the other hoping--for whatever intervals of time we can manage it--to feel safe and content and strong and at ease. [p.40]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“Heir to your own karma doesn't mean 'You get what you deserve.' I think it means 'You get what you get.' Bad things happen to good people. My happiness depending on my action means, to me, that it depends on my action of choosing compassion--for myself as well as for everyone else--rather than contention. [p.61]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“Anger is often a big problem for people who grew up in families where the overt expression of anger was an everyday occurrence. They have too much opportunity to practice anger and not enough sense of the other possibilities. Rage becomes, for them, the habitual response of the mind to unpleasant situations. ... When people begin to see that anger, like any other mind energy, is just a transient phenomenon and therefore workable, they are very relieved [p. 83].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“... life is difficult and painful, just by its very nature, not because we're doing it wrong [pp. 17-18].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Buddha also said that the Dharma, like a bird, needs two wings to fly, and that the wing that balances Wisdom is compassion.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake: Practicing the Perfections of the Heart--The Buddhist Path of Kindness

“Effort, concentration, and mindfulness are the internal ways in which the mind restores itself from being out of balance and lost in confusion to a condition of ease, clarity, and wisdom NO external action needs to happen. [p. 17]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“I love the phrase 'I am not afraid!' Maybe it's the best phrase we can say, other than 'I have everything I need.' Maybe they are the same. [p. 14]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“Perhaps... these days of less sunlight are opportunities for more contemplative time, more looking deeply to see what can only be seen in the dark.”
― Sylvia Boorstein

“I know whether or not I am confused most readily by noticing--being mindful of--my capacity for feeling caring concern. ... when I feel myself in caring connection--encouraging, consoling, or appreciating--I feel the twin pleasures of clarity and goodness. It doesn't matter if the connection I feel is to myself or a person I know or people I don't know or even the whole world. The lively impulse of caring is what counts. [p. 20]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“... the delicacy, the impermanence, the emptiness of mind states. Just like the weather, they blow in and out. Good mood. Bad mood. Tranquil mood. Frazzled mood [p. 105].”
― Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

“Here's a practice idea for right now. Choose one of those sets of phrases. ... Plan on taking some time to say those words over and over, as you would an ardent prayer. Set some time aside for this. (Fifteen minutes would be a good start.) Then sit comfortably. Later on, you can say these phrases walking about or doing chores or even riding your bike--but for now, just sit. That way you can look at the words.
"Say each phrase as if you expect it will feel different in your mind--they are slightly different wishes--and feel how each of them echoes in your mind and body. [pp. 72-73]”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“Sadness isn't a kilesha, a habit pattern evoked by challenge. Sadness sis what the mind feels when it is bereaved or bereft. All the wisdom in the world about the inevitability of change or the lawfulness of does not ease the heaviness in the mind that we feel when we lose someone, or something, we hold dear [p. 148]. ”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life

“The Buddha’s criteria for Wise Speech include—in addition to the obvious expectation that speech be truthful— that it be timely, gentle, motivated by kindness, and helpful.”
― Sylvia Boorstein, Pay Attention, for Goodness' Sake: Practicing the Perfections of the Heart--The Buddhist Path of Kindness