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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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We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better me who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.
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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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The essence of practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of revenge or self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines.
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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.
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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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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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We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.
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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.
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Just where you are-that's the place to start!
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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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Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
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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.
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Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe.
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By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.
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Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.
Pema Chodron
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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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Every small problem most likely stems from the same root as large problems, and so there is no need to always go deep. One can use anything for the therapeutic process and/if this link is made.
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Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you're always standing at the center of the world.
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This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
Pema Chodron