Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
PEMA CHODRONThe central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.
More Pema Chodron Quotes
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Deep down in the human spirit, there is a reservoir of courage. It is always available, always waiting to be discovered.
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One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.
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To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.
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Feel the feelings and drop the story.
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When things fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And as Chögyam Trungpa used to tell us, that’s cause for celebration.
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In meditation, you learn how to get out of your own way long enough for there to be room for your wisdom to manifest.
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Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
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We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.
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So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.
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As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
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Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.
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Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.
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We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.
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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.
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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.
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