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Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

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
Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?
PEMA CHODRON

Certain Death Important Philosophy Time
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
PEMA CHODRON

Believe Hold On Truth Yourself
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 CHODRON

Change Experience Grasp Meditation Ourselves Pattern Thinking
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
PEMA CHODRON

Crazy Drive Heart Learning Open Ourselves People Teacher
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
PEMA CHODRON

Destruction Expose Ourselves
The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something – usually ourselves.
PEMA CHODRON

Essence Generosity Ourselves Pain Sign
Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical golden key to being alive in a full, unrestricted, and inspired way.
PEMA CHODRON

Alive Inspirational Magic Restriction Satisfaction
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Celebration Fall Identity Life World 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
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
Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
PEMA CHODRON

Children Love Self Treat 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
One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.
PEMA CHODRON

Deep Enough Feeling Oneself Pattern
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Alive Awake Death Experience Human Live Man Moments Willing
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
Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.
PEMA CHODRON

Curiosity Fear Greatness Yourself
All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.
PEMA CHODRON

Best Hard Time Situation Teaching Tough 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
Appreciate everything, even the ordinary. Especially the ordinary.
PEMA CHODRON

Gratitude Ordinary Praise
Don’t worry about achieving. Don’t worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can.
PEMA CHODRON

Achievement Best Moments Perfection Worry Yourself
Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
PEMA CHODRON

Difficult Experience Need Run Transformation Yourself
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
Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
PEMA CHODRON

Fear Open Ourselves Resistance
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Angry Disappoint Embarrassment Feeling Hold Irritation Jealous Moments Ourselves Teaching
In meditation, you learn how to get out of your own way long enough for there to be room for your wisdom to manifest.
PEMA CHODRON

Enough Learning Manifestation Medication Way Wisdom Yourself
Deep down in the human spirit, there is a reservoir of courage. It is always available, always waiting to be discovered.
PEMA CHODRON

Brave Courage Discover Human Inspirational Motivational Spirit Wait

Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

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Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.

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