Pema Chodron Quotes

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

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

The central question of a warrior's training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.

Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life.

We don’t experience the world fully unless we are willing to give everything away. Samaya means not holding anything back, not preparing our escape route, not looking for alternatives, not thinking that there is ample time to do things later

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It's such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we're doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We're letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint.

The teacher will never give up on the student no matter how mixed up he or she might be

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.

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.

Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you.

If we Pause and breathe in and out, then we can have the experience of timeless presence, of the inexpressible wisdom and goodness of our own minds. We can look at the world with fresh eyes and hear things with fresh ears.

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

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.

That could be applied to whatever you feel. Maybe anger is your thing. You just go out of control and you see red, and the next thing you know you're yelling or throwing something or hitting someone. At that time, begin to accept the fact that that's "enraged buddha." If you feel jealous, that's "jealous buddha." If you have indigestion, that's "buddha with heartburn." If you're happy, "happy buddha"; if bored, "bored buddha." In other words, anything that you can experience or think is worthy of compassion; anything you could think or feel is worthy of appreciation.

The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. We can't escape any of these experiences in the vast terrain of our existence. It is part of what makes life grand-and it is also why our minds take us on such a crazy ride. If we can train ourselves through meditation to be more open and more accepting toward the wild arc of our experience, if we can lean into the difficulties of life and the ride of our minds, we can become more settled and relaxed amid whatever life brings us.

Share the wealth. Be generous with your joy. Give away what you most want. Be generous with your insights and delights.

Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditional friendliness, a simple, direct relationship with the way we are.

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

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. Why? Because it is all we ever have.

Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.

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

As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.

We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the countries of origin. It's just a sign of our culture.

Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment-all are synonyms for accumulating merit.

It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that's sitting right here right now... with its aches and it pleasures... is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.

Tonglen dissolves your solid sense of "I'm the wise person, I'm going to help this poor, unfortunate loser."

Loving kindness towards ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. It means we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.

Don't worry about achieving. Don't worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can. When you realize you've wandered off again, simply very lightly acknowledge that. This light touch is the golden key to reuniting with our openness.

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.

Whole-heartedn ess is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably....It' s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don't know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.

Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.

When we cling to thoughts and memories, we are clinging to what cannot be grasped. When we touch these phantoms and let them go, we may discover a space, a break in the chatter, a glimpse of open sky. This is our birthright—the wisdom with which we were born, the vast unfolding display of primordial richness, primordial openness, primordial wisdom itself. When one thought has ended and another has not yet begun, we can rest in that space.

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.

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

Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.

Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

Appreciate everything, even the ordinary... Especially the ordinary.

Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.

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.

Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh.

The treasure we seek requires no lengthy expedition, no expensive equipment, no superior aptitude or special company. All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.

This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.

Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what's out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.

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.

All situations teach you, and often it's the tough ones that teach you best.