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

Pema Chodron

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
Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.
PEMA CHODRON

Care Feeling Hope Irritation Listening Reminder
Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
PEMA CHODRON

Brave Courage Fear Inspirational People Thinking
Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?
PEMA CHODRON

Certain Death Important Philosophy Time
All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.
PEMA CHODRON

Best Hard Time Situation Teaching Tough Yourself
So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.
PEMA CHODRON

Global Heart Human Implication Peace Start War
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Joy Life Lose Pain Patience Perspective Reaction Yourself
All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.
PEMA CHODRON

Creation Future Inspirational Motivational Need Open Yourself
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
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
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
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.
PEMA CHODRON

Compassionate Path Reality Spiritual Start Suffering Ugly Yourself
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
PEMA CHODRON

Build Delight Difficult Experience Strength Yourself
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
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
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.
PEMA CHODRON

Fall Hard Time Healing Kind Perspective

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

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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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