Quote

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

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
Self
Begins
Kindness
Compassion
Others

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Patience is not learned in safety.
Pema Chodron
Image
We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.
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 second noble truth says that this resistance is the...mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.
Pema Chodron
Image
The truth is that good and bad coexist sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other.
Pema Chodron
Image
The most important aspect of being on a spiritual path may be to just keep moving.
Pema Chodron
Image
Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment-all are synonyms for accumulating merit.
Pema Chodron
Image
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
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
If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.
Pema Chodron
Image
Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
Pema Chodron
Image
The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval,we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness,we are practicing harshness.
Pema Chodron
Image
There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. Patience implies willingness to be alive rather than trying to seek harmony.
Pema Chodron
Image
Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.
Pema Chodron
Image
Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace-disapp ointment in all its many forms-and let it open me?' This is the trick.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, 'I wonder what's going to happen today.' And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.
Pema Chodron
Image
We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.
Pema Chodron
Image
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
Pema Chodron
Image
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron