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We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.

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
Think
Thinking
People
Gradually
Drop
Buddhism
Ideals
Ought
Suffering

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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If you aren't feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn't have anything to feed on.
Pema Chodron
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If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you are far as you can go. And then you'll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.
Pema Chodron
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Each of us has a soft spot: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.
Pema Chodron
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When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
Pema Chodron
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You must learn to sit with the restless, painful energy and not let the momentum pull you under and cause you to do the same thing over and over that's ruining your life and the lives of those around you.
Pema Chodron
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But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
Pema Chodron
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it is only to the extent that we are willing to expose ourselves again and again to annihilation that we are able to find that part of ourselves that is indestructible.
Pema Chodron
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When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment
Pema Chodron
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So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.
Pema Chodron
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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
Pema Chodron
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While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.
Pema Chodron
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It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.
Pema Chodron
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According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.
Pema Chodron
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We don't set out to save the world we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
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.
Pema Chodron
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Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.
Pema Chodron
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When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron
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If you see a homeless person on the street, and they need food, housing, medical attention - if you can give that, do it. But at the same time, work with tonglen, because that is how you start dissolving the barrier between you and them.
Pema Chodron