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What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.

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
Others

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity?
Pema Chodron
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Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.
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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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.
Pema Chodron
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So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.
Pema Chodron
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By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.
Pema Chodron
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If you work with your mind, instead of trying to change everything on the outside, that's how your temper will cool down.
Pema Chodron
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Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You'd just like to have a little peace, you'd like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break.
Pema Chodron
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We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.
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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Whole-heartedn ess is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably....It' s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don't know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.
Pema Chodron
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Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.
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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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
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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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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Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
Pema Chodron
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In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.
Pema Chodron
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Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.
Pema Chodron
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It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play.
Pema Chodron