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When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.

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
Stay
Soften
Present
Disapproval
Times
Discomfort
Pain
Betrayal
Without
Connect
Trying
Center
Touch
Sorrow

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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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
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We can put our whole heart into whatever we do but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.
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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.
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Inner # peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your # emotions
Pema Chodron
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When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down.
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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Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
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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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.
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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When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too.
Pema Chodron
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Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.
Pema Chodron
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Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.
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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Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn't enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.
Pema Chodron
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All the terrible things we do to ourselves and others from alcoholism to character assignation to abuse to murder come from one cause: the inability to stay present with an uncomfortable feeling in the body and seek short-term relief.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Until we stop clinging to the concept of good and evil, the world will continue to manifest as friendly goddesses and harmful demons.
Pema Chodron
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Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.
Pema Chodron
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
Pema Chodron