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When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment

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
Situation
Dynamic
Quality
Resist
Suffering
Relax
Change
Enlightenment
Embrace
Completely
Struggle
Called

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.
Pema Chodron
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There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. Patience implies willingness to be alive rather than trying to seek harmony.
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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One can appreciate & celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!
Pema Chodron
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I'm here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.
Pema Chodron
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Searching for happiness prevents us from ever finding it.
Pema Chodron
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Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
Pema Chodron
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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
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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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it is only to the extent that we are willing to expose ourselves again and again to annihilation that we are able to find that part of ourselves that is indestructible.
Pema Chodron
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My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay.
Pema Chodron
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Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
Pema Chodron
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Even if you don't feel appreciation, just look. Feel what you feel take an interest and be curious.
Pema Chodron
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At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
Pema Chodron
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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
Pema Chodron
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When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too.
Pema Chodron
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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
Pema Chodron
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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
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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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It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
Pema Chodron