Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that youโre sneaky, all the ways that you hide out, all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all of that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, youโre coming to know humanness altogether. We are all up against these things. We are all in this together.
Pema ChodronCompassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
Pema Chodronwe come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.
Pema ChodronBy becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, we awaken our unlimited potential.
Pema ChodronWe feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good. We donโt want to be wrong because then weโll feel bad. But we could be more compassionate toward all these parts of ourselves. The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller. Wanting situations and relationships to be solid, permanent, and graspable obscures the pith of the matter, which is that things are fundamentally groundless.
Pema Chodron