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Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.

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
Essence
Nothing
Way

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Patience is not learned in safety.
Pema Chodron
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Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.
Pema Chodron
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What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.
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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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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It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. -Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chodron
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Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
Pema Chodron
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Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.
Pema Chodron
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Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
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
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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
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When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?
Pema Chodron
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If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
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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You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else.
Pema Chodron
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Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.
Pema Chodron
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Difficult people are the greatest teachers.
Pema Chodron
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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
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We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.
Pema Chodron
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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
Pema Chodron