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

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
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The Buddha taught that we're not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea. But when you let things be as they are, you will be a much happier, more balanced, compassionate person.
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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.
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Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.
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Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is a part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
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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.
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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.
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At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
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Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we night as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.
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When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.
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The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, 'I wonder what's going to happen today.' And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.
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The second noble truth says that this resistance is the...mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.
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That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. Everything is in process.
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To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
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It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play.
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As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . .
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Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.
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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.
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Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity?
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