Pema Chodron Quotes and Sayings - Page 1

“Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace-disapp ointment in all its many forms-and let it open me?' This is the trick.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Pain #Loss #Suffering

“The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Heart #Advice #Feelings

“Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Essence #Luxury #Joy

“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Teacher #Inspirational Love #Peace

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Life #Spiritual #Learning

“Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical golden key to being alive in a full, unrestricted, and inspired way.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Keys #Alive #Golden

“It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Suffering #Causes

“Some of us can accept others right where they are a lot more easily than we can accept ourselves. We feel that compassion is reserved for someone else, and it never occurs to us to feel it for ourselves. My experience is that by practicing without 'shoulds,' we gradually discover our wakefulness and our confidence. Gradually, without any agenda except to be honest and kind, we assume responsibility for being here in this unpredictable world, in this unique moment, in this precious human body.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Responsibility #Unique #Compassion

“Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Practice #Down And #Helping

“Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Respect #Sweet #Confused

“So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.”
-- Pema Chodron

#War #Heart #Humans

“The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Writing #Moments

“Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way, a very powerful middle way...... Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way..... true communication can happen only in that open space.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Inspirational #Powerful #Communication

“The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Peace #Believe

“It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Spiritual #Perspective #Suffering

“Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Spiritual #Panic #Path

“Use your life to wake you up.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Positive #Use

“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.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Integrity #Heart #Compassion

“We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Peace #Helping Others #Order

“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.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Truth #Fear #Heart

“When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment”
-- Pema Chodron

#Letting Go #Struggle #Suffering

“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.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Pain #Moving #Emotional

“Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering,”
-- Pema Chodron

#Suffering #Causes

“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.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Heart #Dark #Thinking

“You could begin to notice whenever you find yourself blaming others or justifying yourself. If you spent the rest of your life just noticing that and letting it be a way to uncover the silliness of the human condition-the tragic yet comic drama that we all continually buy into-you could develop a lot of wisdom and a lot of kindness as well as a great sense of humor.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Kindness #Drama #Finding Yourself

“…feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Teacher #Disappointment #Irritation

“Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Perspective #Patient #Painful

“It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem for us. We feel justified in being annoyed with everything. We feel justified in denigrating ourselves or in feeling that we are more clever than other people. Self-importance hurts us, limiting us to the narrow world of our likes and dislikes. We end up bored to death with ourselves and our world. We end up never satisfied.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Hurt #Clever #Drama

“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.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Peace #Buddhist #Heart

“We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.”
-- Pema Chodron

#Beautiful #Hurt #Children