Quote

Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.

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
Experience
Wanting
Others
Fellow
Take
Fellows
Increase
Benefits
Indirectly
Beings
Kinship
Attitude
Directly
Whatever
Benefit

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Appreciate everything, even the ordinary... Especially the ordinary.
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The more neurosis the more wisdom.
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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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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
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Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.
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People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all.
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Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.
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We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it’s a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it’s all mixed up together, it’s us: humanness.
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We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.
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Difficult people are the greatest teachers.
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Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.
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Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditional friendliness, a simple, direct relationship with the way we are.
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Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.
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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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Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life it might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.
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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.
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The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.
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Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.
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We are undoing a pattern... It's the human pattern: we project onto the world a zillion possibilities of attaining resolution.
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Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.
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