Meditation isn’t really about getting rid of thoughts, it’s about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.
PEMA CHODRONAs our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
More Pema Chodron Quotes
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Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
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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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All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.
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All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.
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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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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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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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As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
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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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In the end, that’s what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation.
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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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The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.
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The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
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It isn’t the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
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Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back.
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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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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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Feel the feelings and drop the story.
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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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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
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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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There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.
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The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, ‘I wonder what’s going to happen today.’ And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.
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Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.
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We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.
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