Quote

When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. (9)

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
Something
Either
Verge
Way
Quality
Tender
Things
Working
Tenderness
Place
Shut
Might
Vulnerable
Nothing
Touch
Shaky
Feel
Realize
Throbbing
Feels
Realizing
Resentful

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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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.
Pema Chodron
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How will we experience the world a month, a year, or five years from now? Will we be even angrier, more grasping and fearful, or will some shift have occurred? This depends entirely on the tendencies we reinforce today.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
Pema Chodron
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Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.
Pema Chodron
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If you see a homeless person on the street, and they need food, housing, medical attention - if you can give that, do it. But at the same time, work with tonglen, because that is how you start dissolving the barrier between you and them.
Pema Chodron
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The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.
Pema Chodron
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Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.
Pema Chodron
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Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel.
Pema Chodron
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Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.
Pema Chodron
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We are undoing a pattern... It's the human pattern: we project onto the world a zillion possibilities of attaining resolution.
Pema Chodron
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Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment-all are synonyms for accumulating merit.
Pema Chodron
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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
Pema Chodron
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Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you're always standing at the center of the world.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
Pema Chodron
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Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.
Pema Chodron
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The truth is that good and bad coexist sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other.
Pema Chodron
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Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
Pema Chodron
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Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.
Pema Chodron