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The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief.

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
Truth
Firsts
First
Buddha
Feel
Relief
Feels
Noble
Mean
Suffering
Something
Wrong
Doesn

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.
Pema Chodron
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Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.
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Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we night as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.
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Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
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If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart.
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.
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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is a part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
Pema Chodron
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Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
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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.
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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
Pema Chodron
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Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
Pema Chodron
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
Pema Chodron
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How will we experience the world a month, a year, or five years from now? Will we be even angrier, more grasping and fearful, or will some shift have occurred? This depends entirely on the tendencies we reinforce today.
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Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us.
Pema Chodron
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Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.
Pema Chodron
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We can put our whole heart into whatever we do but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.
Pema Chodron
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Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.
Pema Chodron
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Never underestimate the desire to bolt.
Pema Chodron
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Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.
Pema Chodron
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So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn't sit for even one, that's the journey of the warrior. (68)
Pema Chodron