Quote

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

Pema Chodron

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Teacher
Crazy
Wellness
Open
Mindfulness
Anyone
Buddhism
Peace
Drive
Learn
Yoga
Heart
Hearts
People
Including

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
we come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
Pema Chodron
Image
We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.
Pema Chodron
Image
Even if you don't feel appreciation, just look. Feel what you feel take an interest and be curious.
Pema Chodron
Image
But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
Pema Chodron
Image
Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn't enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.
Pema Chodron
Image
Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace-disapp ointment in all its many forms-and let it open me?' This is the trick.
Pema Chodron
Image
We can put our whole heart into whatever we do but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.
Pema Chodron
Image
Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.
Pema Chodron
Image
Each of us has a soft spot: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.
Pema Chodron
Image
Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.
Pema Chodron
Image
We don't set out to save the world we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
Pema Chodron
Image
Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
Pema Chodron
Image
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
Pema Chodron
Image
Use your life to wake you up.
Pema Chodron
Image
The biggest obstacle to taking a bigger perspective on life is that our emotions capture and blind us.
Pema Chodron
Image
Patience is not learned in safety.
Pema Chodron