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Pema Chodron Quotes - Page 8

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

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.

Integrity, Heart, Compassion

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

Practice, Meditation And Yoga, Trying

Pema Chodron (2001). “The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness”, p.2, Shambhala Publications

We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.

Mistake, Self, Suffering

We're afraid that this anger or sorrow or loneliness is going to last forever... Instead, acting it out is what makes it last.

Loneliness, Forever, Sorrow

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.73, Shambhala Publications

Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.

Running, Compassion, Self

Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.

Change, Pain, Meditation

Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.

Letting Go, Encouragement, Flower

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.133, Shambhala Publications

How will we experience the world a month, a year, or five years from now? Will we be even angrier, more grasping and fearful, or will some shift have occurred? This depends entirely on the tendencies we reinforce today.

Motivational, Years, World

Pema Chodron (2007). “No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva”, p.41, Shambhala Publications

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

Long, Alive, Resistance

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.98, Shambhala Publications

Ego could be defined as whatever covers up basic goodness. From an experiential point of view, what is ego covering up? It's covering up our experience of just being here, just fully being where we are, so that we can relate with the immediacy of our experience. Egolessness is a state of mind that has complete confidence in the sacredness of the world. It is unconditional well being, unconditional joy that includes all the different qualities of our experience.

Spiritual, Views, Joy

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.80, Shambhala Publications

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.

Peace, Buddhist, Heart

Pema Chodron (2008). “The Pocket Pema Chodron”, p.118, Shambhala Publications

The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness. The more we do it, the stronger these qualities become. How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go. We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal.

Letting Go, Practice, Curiosity

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

Essence, Self, Bravery

Pema Chodron (2008). “The Pocket Pema Chodron”, p.49, Shambhala Publications

The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be just to keep moving.

Spiritual, Moving, Journey

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.20, Shambhala Publications

Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we're going to be more cheerful in the future, it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.

Cheerful, Moments, Results

"Tea with Pema Chordon in the Mayan Jungle". Interview with Karl Saliter, www.elephantjournal.com. May 11, 2012.

Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong.

Spiritual, Ideas, People

Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. February, 2008.

Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity?

Keys, Stories, Awareness

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

When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.

Pain, Moving, Emotional

All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are.

Real, Ego, Opinion

As long as we're caught up in always looking for certainty and happiness, rather than honoring the taste and smell and quality of exactly what is happening, as long as we're always running from discomfort, we're going to be caught in a cycle of unhappiness and discomfort, and we will feel weaker and weaker. This way of seeing helps us develop inner strength. And what's especially encouraging is the view that inner strength is available to us at just the moment when we think that we've hit the bottom, when things are at their worst.

Strength, Happiness, Encouraging

"Practicing Peace in Times of War". Book by Pema Chodron, books.google.ru. 2007.

The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.

Letting Go, Pain, Essence

Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.133, Shambhala Publications

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It's about seeing how we react to all these things. It's seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It's about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.

Jobs, People, Meditation

I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind to the person or situation that's right in front of you, and you miss so much.

Heart, Missing, Ego

So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn't sit for even one, that's the journey of the warrior. (68)

Loneliness, Warrior, Journey

Just pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy.

Two, Perfect, Enemy

Pema Chodron (2009). “Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears”, p.50, Shambhala Publications

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