Quote

The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last—that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security.

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
Humans
Beings
Disintegrate
First
Security
Counted
Long
Suffering
Buddha
Believe
Lasts
Satisfy
Things
Last
Points
Truth
Inevitable
Firsts
Hunger
Human
Noble

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Enlightenment is a direct experience with reality.
Pema Chodron
Image
Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.
Pema Chodron
Image
Things are as bad and as good as they seem. There's no need to add anything extra.
Pema Chodron
Image
It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share.
Pema Chodron
Image
Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.
Pema Chodron
Image
We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
Pema Chodron
Image
The wisdom, the strength, the confidence - the awakened heart and mind are always accessible -- here, now, always.
Pema Chodron
Image
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron
Image
In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.
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
Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego... Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well.
Pema Chodron
Image
Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape - all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
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
It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Pema Chodron
Image
If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider.
Pema Chodron
Image
Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.
Pema Chodron