Quote

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.

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
Essence
Without
Self
Deception
Bravery

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
Pema Chodron
Image
Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.
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
Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
Pema Chodron
Image
Don't worry about achieving. Don't worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can. When you realize you've wandered off again, simply very lightly acknowledge that. This light touch is the golden key to reuniting with our openness.
Pema Chodron
Image
While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.
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
Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.
Pema Chodron
Image
None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.
Pema Chodron
Image
We practice to liberate ourselves from a burden.
Pema Chodron
Image
Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life it might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.
Pema Chodron
Image
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
Pema Chodron
Image
Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.
Pema Chodron
Image
Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.
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
Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
Pema Chodron
Image
To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
Pema Chodron
Image
The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.
Pema Chodron
Image
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
Pema Chodron
Image
Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.
Pema Chodron