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The second noble truth says that this resistance is the mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.

Pema Chodron

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.
PEMA CHODRON

Help Order Ourselves Work
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Believe Suffering Truth Yourself
Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.
PEMA CHODRON

Certain Chaos Learning Path Spiritual Stick
Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.
PEMA CHODRON

Complaint Emotional Fortune Goodness Inspirational Ordinary Rejoice World
It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.
PEMA CHODRON

Hard Time Ourselves Reaction Suffering
The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.
PEMA CHODRON

Avoid Certain Comfortable Question Training Warrior
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Acceptance Important Myself Right Thinking
If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart.
PEMA CHODRON

Attention Fact Heart Person Shout Stand Yourself
By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.
PEMA CHODRON

Believe Creation Ourselves Thinking Way World
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Arrive Need Problem Run Teaching
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Choice Embrace Human Life Ourselves Situation Suffering
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.
PEMA CHODRON

Fall Hard Time Healing Kind Perspective
Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.
PEMA CHODRON

Gratitude Ordinary Praise
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Best Curiosity Instruction Life Morning Spiritual Wonder Yourself
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Awake Life Limitation Person Stand Thinking Vehicle Yourself
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Choice Circumstance Hard Kind Life Open Scare

The second noble truth says that this resistance is the mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.

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The second noble truth says that this resistance is the mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.

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Popular Authors

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