Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we’re stuck.
PEMA CHODRONBe kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.
More Pema Chodron Quotes
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Each person’s life is like a mandala – a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life … everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening.
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Don’t worry about achieving. Don’t worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can.
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As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
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There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.
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Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
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Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh.
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If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
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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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The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something – usually ourselves.
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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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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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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
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When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.
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The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.
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Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.
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It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.
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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
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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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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
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The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.
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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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Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?
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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
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I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be.
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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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Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
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