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Pema Chodron Quotes - Page 16

All Quotes Acceptance Acting Addiction Appreciation Attitude Awakening Awareness Belief Bravery Buddhism Certainty Challenges Change Character Children Choices Clarity Commitment Compassion Confusion Curiosity Desire Determination Disappointment Drama Earth Ego Empathy Energy Enlightenment Experience Fear Feelings Finding Yourself Freedom Giving Giving Up Grief Happiness Healing Heart Honesty Humanity Hurt Identity Ignorance Insecurity Inspirational Inspiring Journey Joy Justice Karma Kindness Learning Letting Go Life Loneliness Meditation Mindfulness Opportunity Pain Peace Peace Of Mind Perfection Perspective Pleasure Prejudice Quality Reality Resentment Revenge Running Sadness Sleep Sorrow Spirituality Struggle Suffering Teaching Train Training Understanding Waiting Warrior Water Wisdom

To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.

To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.

Suffering, Noble, Impermanence

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.53, Shambhala Publications

Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

Buddhist, Moving, Compassion

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.66, Shambhala Publications

Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under our feet. For instance, if what we're feeling is rage, we usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to it. One is to blame others. Lay it all on somebody else; drive all blames into everyone else. The other alternative is to feel guilty about our rage and blame ourselves.

Buddhist, Pain, Heart

The most complete and true happiness comes in moments when you feel right there, completely present, with no ideas about good and bad, right and wrong - just a sense of open heart and open mind.

Heart, Ideas, Mind

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all.

Mean, Ideas, People

The way I regard those who hurt me today will affect how I experience the world in the future. In any encounter, we have a choice: we can strengthen our resentment or our understanding and empathy. We can widen the gap between ourselves and others or lessen it.

Hurt, Choices, Empathy

It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns. Without maitri (metta), renunciation of old habits becomes abusive. This is an important point.

Letting Go, Old Habits, Meditation

Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggressionat our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think weought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other peoplethink we want to be or ought to be. We give it up and just look directlywith compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat andheartache, no punishment.

Loneliness, Thinking, Compassion

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.76, Shambhala Publications

Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.

One Day At A Time, Benefits, Earth

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.146, Shambhala Publications

We practice to liberate ourselves from a burden.

Practice, Burden

"When Things Fall Apart". Book by Pema Chodron, billmoyers.com. December 24, 1996.

Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.

Sleep, Wake Up, Wakes You

Just where you are-that's the place to start!

Where You Are

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.46, Shambhala Publications

At least once a year, I imagine that I am about to die. Looking back as truthfully as I can at my entire life, I give full attention to the things I wish hadn’t occurred. Recognizing these mistakes honestly but without self-recrimination, I try to rejoice in the innate wisdom that allows me to see so bravely, and I feel compassion for how I so frequently messed up. Then I can go forward. The future is wide open, and what I do with it is up to me.

Mistake, Compassion, Self

Pema Chodron (2007). “No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva”, p.38, Shambhala Publications

If you look back at history or you look at any place in the world where religious groups or ethnic groups or racial groups or political groups are killing each other, or families have been feuding for years and years, you can see - because you're not particularly invested in that particular argument - that there will never be peace until somebody softens what is rigid in their heart.

Religious, Peace, Heart

Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.

Essence, Realization

We could learn to stop when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up. We could learn to listen to the wind; we could learn to notice that it's raining or snowing or hailing or calm. We could reconnect with the weather that is ourselves, and we could realize that it's sad. The sadder it is, and the vaster it is, the more our heart opens. We can stop thinking that good practice is when it's smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it's rough and dark. If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea.

Rain, Heart, Dark

"The Wisdom of No Escape". Book by Pema Chodron, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1991.

To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.

Practice, Negativity, Aversion

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.79, Shambhala Publications

My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay.

Spiritual, Buddhist, Philosophy

If you have rage and righteously act it out and blame it all on others, it's really you who suffers. The other people and the environment suffer also, but you suffer more because you're being eaten up inside with rage, causing you to hate yourself more and more

Hate, People, Suffering

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.45, Shambhala Publications

If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.

Mind, Suffering, Alleviate

We are undoing a pattern... It's the human pattern: we project onto the world a zillion possibilities of attaining resolution.

World, Patterns, Resolution

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.69, Shambhala Publications

We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it’s a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it’s all mixed up together, it’s us: humanness.

Beautiful, Interesting, Together

Pema Chodron (1996). “Awakening Loving-Kindness”, p.45, Shambhala Publications

We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

Forget, Natural, Schemes

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.78, Shambhala Publications

It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play.

Drama, Believe, Moving

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.25, Shambhala Publications

Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?

Growing Up, Grows, Relate

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.6, Shambhala Publications

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