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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.

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
Life
Natural
Somehow
Process
Changing
Sense
Deny
Part
Tend
Trying
Lose
Sacredness
Work
Loses
Scheme
Always
Suffering
Schemes
Things
Forget
Buddhism

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Searching for happiness prevents us from ever finding it.
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
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As for our inner level of obstacle, perhaps the only enemy we have is that we don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we need to acknowledge is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
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One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively.
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
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Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel. Not to be ashamed of the love and grief that it arouses in us. Not to be afraid of pain. Someone needs to encourage us: that this soft spot in us could be awakened, and that to do this would change our lives.
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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.
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Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.
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Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
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Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditional friendliness, a simple, direct relationship with the way we are.
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In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness , as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It is our capacity to relax with not knowing, not figuring everything out, with not being at all sure who we are, or who anyone else is, either.
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Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.
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It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.
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At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
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Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.
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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.
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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.
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Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
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We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
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If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
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