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No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear...the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away. (5)

Pema Chodron

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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Fear
Pill
Means
Distract
Running
Pills
Away
Smooth
Ever
Tells
Take
Advice
Mean
Usually
Make
Stop
Sweeten

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The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.
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We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.
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You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
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This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.
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In truth, there is enormous space in which to live our everyday lives.
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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.
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What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.
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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
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Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.
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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.
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Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.
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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.
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The second noble truth says that this resistance is the...mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.
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Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
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The central question of a warrior's training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.
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We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.
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When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?
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Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don't interrupt our patterns slightly. When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?
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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is a part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
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If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you are far as you can go. And then you'll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.
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