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Pema Chodron Quotes about Heart

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If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart.

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart.

Buddhist, Heart, Arrows

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.42, Shambhala Publications

This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we're arrogant and soften us when we are unkind.

Heart, Humble, Sadness

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.5, Shambhala Publications

We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us - a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don't close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.

Truth, Fear, Heart

Feel the wounded heart that's underneath the addiction, self-loathing, or anger.

Heart, Self, Addiction

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.42, Shambhala Publications

Meditation accepts us just as we are-in both our tantrums and our bad habits, in our love and commitments and happiness. It allows us to have a more flexible identity because we learn to accept ourselves and all of our human experience with more tenderness and openness. We learn to accept the present moment with an open heart. Every moment is incredibly unique and fresh, and when we drop into the moment, as meditation allows us to do, we learn how to truly taste this tender and mysterious life that we share together.

Commitment, Heart, Unique

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.

Soulmate, Heart, Opening Our Hearts

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.128, Shambhala Publications

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace.

Heart, Responsibility, Practice

If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.

Heart, Follow Your Heart, Ifs

Pema Chodron (2001). “The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving Kindness”, p.123, Shambhala Publications

Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum. We don't interrupt our patterns even slightly. With practice, however, we learn to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with the desire for revenge. 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.

Revenge, Heart, Practice

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

We can begin to open our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting anything back. We just do it for its own sake.

Freedom, Heart, Inspire

Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is true isn’t just a matter of honesty but also of compassion and respect for what we see.

Honesty, Kindness, Heart

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.98, Shambhala Publications

When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity to love and care about other people and your capacity to not be afraid. You're able to keep your eyes open, your heart open, and your mind open. And you notice when you get caught up in prejudice, bias, and aggression. You develop an enthusiasm for no longer watering those negative seeds, from now until the day you die. And, you begin to think of your life as offering endless opportunities to start to do things differently.

Inspirational, Heart, Eye

Pema Chodron (2008). “The Pocket Pema Chodron”, p.24, 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

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

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

When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart.

Pain, Heart, Armor

Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.115, Shambhala Publications

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

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

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

In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we  breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it, and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating compassion, lovingkindness, freshness - anything that encourages relaxation and openness.  So you're training in softening, rather than tightening, your heart. In this practice, it's not uncommon to find yourself blocked, because you come face to face with your own fear, resistance, or whatever your personal "stuckness" happens to be at that moment.

Heart, Compassion, Practice

Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.

Heart, Demon, Possibility

Pema Chodron (2002). “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times”, p.64, Shambhala Publications

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.

Love, Inspirational, Heart

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.128, Shambhala Publications

The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.

Pain, Heart, People

Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.164, Shambhala Publications

Hold the sadness and pain of samsara [suffering, confusion] in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun [fundamental awake human nature]. Then the warrior [brave enough to look at & work with reality] can make a proper cup of tea.

Pain, Heart, Sadness

The wisdom, the strength, the confidence - the awakened heart and mind are always accessible -- here, now, always.

Heart, Mind, Heart And Mind

Pema Chodron (2009). “Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears”, p.51, Shambhala Publications

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