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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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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Practice
Everyday
Anyone
Awareness
Teachings
Understand
Meet
Trusting
Ever
Teaching
Closing
Without
Emotion
Encounter
Take
Taught
Encounters
Love
Open
Situations
People
Situation
Emotions

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
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It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
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Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.
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The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.
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It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are.
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We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.
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The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.
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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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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.
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Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
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 you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too.
Pema Chodron
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Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.
Pema Chodron
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Our true nature is like a precious jewel: although it may be temporarily buried in mud, it remains completely brilliant and unaffected. We simply have to uncover it.
Pema Chodron
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Appreciate everything, even the ordinary... Especially the ordinary.
Pema Chodron
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Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
Pema Chodron
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Inner # peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your # emotions
Pema Chodron
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Things are as bad and as good as they seem. There's no need to add anything extra.
Pema Chodron
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To live is to be willing to die over and over again.
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Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.
Pema Chodron