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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.

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
Enlightenment
Meditation
Spiritual
Lives
Meditators
Inspirational
Mindfulness
Become
Awakening
Good
Buddhist
Awake

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don't interrupt our patterns slightly. When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?
Pema Chodron
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Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.
Pema Chodron
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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.
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.
Pema Chodron
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The biggest obstacle to taking a bigger perspective on life is that our emotions capture and blind us.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
Pema Chodron
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Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.
Pema Chodron
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Fear itself is the vanguard of wisdom
Pema Chodron
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It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns. Without maitri (metta), renunciation of old habits becomes abusive. This is an important point.
Pema Chodron
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It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that arises, the rawness and the vulnerability, and sending some kind of warmth and love to that rawness and soreness. I think that's how we have to practice.
Pema Chodron
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Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.
Pema Chodron
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Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.
Pema Chodron
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Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace-disapp ointment in all its many forms-and let it open me?' This is the trick.
Pema Chodron
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If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.
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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Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.
Pema Chodron
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The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider.
Pema Chodron