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Pema Chodron Quotes - Page 6

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

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.

Disappointment, Adventure, Knowing

Over time, as the thinking mind begins to settle [through the practice of meditation], we’ll start to see our patterns and habits far more clearly. Sometimes this can be a painful experience. I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be. By cultivating nonjudgmental openness to ourselves and to whatever arises, to our surprise and delight we will find ourselves genuinely welcoming the never-pin-downable quality of life, experiencing it as a friend, a teacher, and a support, and no longer as an enemy.

Teacher, Thinking, Painful Experiences

Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.

Pain, Grief, Punishment

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.94, Shambhala Publications

Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.

Spiritual, Exercise, Relax

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.8, Shambhala Publications

In meditation, you learn how to get out of your own way long enough for there to be room for your wisdom to manifest

Long, Meditation, Way

The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain.

Emotional, Meditation, Easier

Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel. Not to be ashamed of the love and grief that it arouses in us. Not to be afraid of pain. Someone needs to encourage us: that this soft spot in us could be awakened, and that to do this would change our lives.

Pain, Grief, Needs

We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.

Buddhist, Reality, Two

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.26, Shambhala Publications

Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest if you find that helpful. This is a way of accepting yourself just as you are in that moment, a way of saying, "This is my experience right now, and it's okay." Then go into the next moment without any agenda.

Heart, Hands, Mindfulness

Pema Chodron (2012). “Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change”, p.72, Shambhala Publications

Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.

Buddhism, Squares, Suffering

One can appreciate & celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!

Inspirational, Appreciation, Buddhist

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.2, Shambhala Publications

There comes a time when the bubble of ego is popped and you can’t get the ground back for an extended period of time. Those times, when you absolutely cannot get it back together, are the most rich and powerful times in our lives.

Powerful, Ego, Together

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. -Pema Chodron, from "When Things Fall Apart

Fall, Space, Waiting

Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by strong emotion, do we remember that it is our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can't practice when distracted but KNOW we can't, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.

Strong, Heart, Warrior

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.47, Shambhala Publications

In the end, that's what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation.

Needs, Kind, Ends

Remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.

Heart, Awakening, Remember

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.46, Shambhala Publications

Simply be present with your own shifting energies and with the unpredictabilit y of life as it unfolds.

Inspirational, Life, Spiritual

Our wisdom is all mixed up with what we call our neurosis. Our brilliance, our juiciness, our spiciness, is all mixed up with our craziness and our confusion, and therefore it doesn’t do any good to try to get rid of our so-called negative aspects, because in that process we also get rid of our basic wonderfulness. We can lead our life so as to become more awake to who we are and what we’re doing rather than trying to improve or change or get rid of who we are or what we’re doing. The key is to wake up, to become more alert, more inquisitive and curious about ourselves.

Keys, Confusion, Trying

Pema Chodron (2001). “The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness”, p.6, Shambhala Publications

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience and Infinite love is the only truth; everything else is an illusion.

Spiritual, Positive Thinking, Love Is

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought. That's what we're going to discover again and again and again. Nothing is what we thought. I can say that with great confidence. Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear. Compassion––not what we thought. Love. Buddha nature. Courage. These are code words for things we don't know in our minds, but any of us could experience them. These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment.

Fall, Compassion, Mind

The biggest obstacle to taking a bigger perspective on life is that our emotions capture and blind us.

Perspective, Emotion, Obstacles

Pema Chodron (2001). “The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness”, p.39, Shambhala Publications

When you refrain from habitual thoughts and behavior, the uncomfortable feelings will still be there. They don’t magically disappear. Over the years, I’ve come to call resting with the discomfort “the detox period,” because when you don’t act on your habitual patterns, it’s like giving up an addiction. You’re left with the feelings you were trying to escape. The practice is to make a wholehearted relationship with that

Wisdom, Buddhist, Giving Up

Pema Chodron (2012). “Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change”, p.36, Shambhala Publications

Are you experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch? Stay! I can't stand this another minute! Stay!

Inspiration, Practice, Lunch

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.36, Shambhala Publications

Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

Work, Buddhism, Suffering

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

We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. That is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives.

Spiritual, Attitude, Struggle

Pema Chodron (2008). “The Pocket Pema Chodron”, p.138, Shambhala Publications

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