Pema Chodron Quotes

Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.

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

Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.

Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.

There isn't any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world. Hell is just resistance to life.

Patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself.

The essence of our whole path is in that place of discomfort, and what do we do with it?

Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.

Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.

Until we stop clinging to the concept of good and evil, the world will continue to manifest as friendly goddesses and harmful demons.

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

There are many changes in the weather of a day.

Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering,

Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.

Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself.

All of life is interconnected.

The concepts of problem and solution can keep us stuck in thinking that there is an enemy and a saint or a right way and a wrong way.

The experience of a sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness.

Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what's happening.

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

True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.

The idea of karma is that you continually get the teaching that you need to open your heart.

Compassion involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

Patience is not learned in safety.

I'm here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.

As long as we believe that there is something that will permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable.

In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.

Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.

To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.

Once you create a self-justifying storyline, your emotional entrapment within it quadruples.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.

Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.

Finally, never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.

Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start.

Sometimes you just have to let everything fall apart.

strengthening habitual patterns of suffering. We begin to see this more and more clearly, and we begin to realize that we can do something different.

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.

We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal.

One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.

Treat yourself as your own beloved child.

Even if you don't feel appreciation, just look. Feel what you feel; take an interest and be curious.

Searching for happiness prevents us from ever finding it.

We think we'd be delighted to have an unconditional relationship, but that's only as long as it's on our own terms.

Self-improvement can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.

Just prepare well and know what you want to do. Give it your best, but you really don't have a clue what's going to happen.

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

We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds. (36)

Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.

Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us.

Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.

At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.

In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others.

Without loving-kindness, staying in pain is just warfare.

We can connect with that openness at any time. For instance, right now, for three seconds, just stop reading and pause. If

It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share.

When you open the door and invite in all sentient beings as your guests, you have to drop your agenda.

As we practice, we begin to know the difference between our fantasy and reality.

Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment,

Once we have the fixed idea "this is me," then we see everything as a threat or a promise - or something we couldn't care less about.

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

Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.

Many religions have meditations on death to let it penetrate our thick skulls that life doesn't last forever.

It is our conditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to compassion for others.

The meditation technique itself cultivate precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go - qualities that are innate within us.

In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and unconditional friendliness: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts.

PATIENCE is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path.

Sometimes we find that we like our thoughts so much that we don't want to let them go.

This book stresses repeatedly that it is unconditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to unconditional compassion for others.

The Process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality ...

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

THE way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face-to-face.

None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.

Pointing directly at your own heart, you find Buddha.

While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.

What happens with you when you begin to feel uneasy, unsettled, queasy? Notice the panic, notice when you instantly grab for something. (51)

The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.

Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment.

Things become clear when there is no escape.

As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new ...

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

When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.

The principle of nowness is very important to any effort to establish an enlightened society.

WHEN we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that because of our noble intentions everything will be okay.

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

Leonard Cohen once said about the benefits of many years of meditation, "The less there was of me, the happier I got." Letting

When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too.

You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else.

We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.

Meditation practice is not about later, when you get it all together and you're this person you really respect.

If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.

Difficult people are the greatest teachers.

As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment.

When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.

When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure.