Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
Pema ChodronOnce you create a self-justifying storyline, your emotional entrapment within it quadruples.
Pema ChodronIt's important to remember, when we're out there aggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition.
Pema ChodronCome back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.
Pema Chodron