Quote

Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

Pema Chodron

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Learning
Involves
Practice
Scare
Moving
Allowing
Relax
Buddhist
Scares
Toward
Gently
Compassion
Relaxation
Move
Daring

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Tonglen is a way for you to be with people who need you - beginning with yourself.
Pema Chodron
Image
Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.
Pema Chodron
Image
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.
Pema Chodron
Image
The essence of practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of revenge or self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Pema Chodron
Image
Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.
Pema Chodron
Image
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Pema Chodron
Image
When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart.
Pema Chodron
Image
Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?
Pema Chodron
Image
Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.
Pema Chodron
Image
It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
Pema Chodron
Image
No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear...the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away. (5)
Pema Chodron
Image
What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.
Pema Chodron
Image
My moods are continuously shifting like the weather.
Pema Chodron
Image
The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.
Pema Chodron
Image
All the terrible things we do to ourselves and others from alcoholism to character assignation to abuse to murder come from one cause: the inability to stay present with an uncomfortable feeling in the body and seek short-term relief.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
Don't worry about achieving. Don't worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can. When you realize you've wandered off again, simply very lightly acknowledge that. This light touch is the golden key to reuniting with our openness.
Pema Chodron
Image
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