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Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

Pema Chodron

Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
PEMA CHODRON

Fear Open Ourselves Resistance
Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
PEMA CHODRON

Children Love Self Treat Yourself
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
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
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
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
Feel the feelings and drop the story.
PEMA CHODRON

Feeling One Liner
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
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 the end, that’s what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation.
PEMA CHODRON

End Kind Situation Support Togetherness
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
Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we’re stuck.
PEMA CHODRON

Friendship Obstacle Ourselves Stuck Teaching
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 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
There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.
PEMA CHODRON

Development Important Oneself Path Spiritual
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
If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
PEMA CHODRON

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

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

Gratitude Ordinary Praise
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
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
PEMA CHODRON

Connection Greatness Joy Obstacle Ourselves
Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
PEMA CHODRON

Awake Challenge Experience Open Path Spiritual
When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.
PEMA CHODRON

Comfortable Fear Learning Moments Stay Willing
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

Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

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Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

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