black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Pema Chodron

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
Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
PEMA CHODRON

Compassionate Medicine Personal Poison Suffering 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
Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
PEMA CHODRON

Pain Resistance Suffering
All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.
PEMA CHODRON

Hate Ignorance Investment Opinion Ourselves War World
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
As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
PEMA CHODRON

Growth Kindness Ourselves People
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
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
The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.
PEMA CHODRON

Future Moments Open Writing
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
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
PEMA CHODRON

Connection Greatness Joy Obstacle Ourselves
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
Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.
PEMA CHODRON

Give Up Inspirational Motivational Self Love Yourself
Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.
PEMA CHODRON

Compassionate Kind World Yourself
When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment.
PEMA CHODRON

Change Dynamic Enlightenment Ourselves Resistance Situation Struggle Suffering
Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we’re stuck.
PEMA CHODRON

Friendship Obstacle Ourselves Stuck Teaching
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
Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.
PEMA CHODRON

Curiosity Fear Greatness Yourself
There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.
PEMA CHODRON

Development Important Oneself Path Spiritual
All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.
PEMA CHODRON

Best Hard Time Situation Teaching Tough Yourself
One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.
PEMA CHODRON

Deep Enough Feeling Oneself Pattern
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
If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
PEMA CHODRON

Heart Inspirational Yourself
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.
PEMA CHODRON

Fall Hard Time Healing Kind Perspective
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
Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.
PEMA CHODRON

Care Feeling Hope Irritation Listening Reminder

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Pema Chodron Quotes