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There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.

Pema Chodron

As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
PEMA CHODRON

Growth Kindness Ourselves People
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
PEMA CHODRON

Connection Greatness Joy Obstacle Ourselves
All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.
PEMA CHODRON

Best Hard Time Situation Teaching Tough Yourself
Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we’re stuck.
PEMA CHODRON

Friendship Obstacle Ourselves Stuck Teaching
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
Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.
PEMA CHODRON

Fall Hard Time Healing Kind Perspective
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 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 truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
PEMA CHODRON

Believe Hold On Truth Yourself
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.
PEMA CHODRON

Choice Control Person Moments Peace 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
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
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
Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
PEMA CHODRON

Pain Resistance Suffering
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 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
One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.
PEMA CHODRON

Deep Enough Feeling Oneself Pattern
Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh.
PEMA CHODRON

Moments Time Unique
There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.
PEMA CHODRON

Development Important Oneself Path Spiritual
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
Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
PEMA CHODRON

Children Love Self Treat 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
You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.
PEMA CHODRON

Sky Yourself
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
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
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
If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
PEMA CHODRON

Heart Inspirational Yourself

There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.

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There’s nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.

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