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One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively.

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
Simply
Distance
Practice
Meditation
Sound
Sitting
Stills
Close
Attentively
Still
Listening
Buddhist
Way
Listen
Staying
Minutes
Minute
Present
Sounds

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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.
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Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.
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As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . .
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When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too.
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Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn't enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.
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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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it is only to the extent that we are willing to expose ourselves again and again to annihilation that we are able to find that part of ourselves that is indestructible.
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Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.
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You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
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Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
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Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.
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To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
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Things are as bad and as good as they seem. There's no need to add anything extra.
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We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.
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A heartfelt sense of aspiring cuts through negativity about yourself it cuts through the heavy trips you lay on yourself.
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By becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, we awaken our unlimited potential.
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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.
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Use your life to wake you up.
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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.
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