Quote

Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

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
Thick
Discover
Dies
Right
Things
Love

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.
Pema Chodron
Image
When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
We are undoing a pattern... It's the human pattern: we project onto the world a zillion possibilities of attaining resolution.
Pema Chodron
Image
The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.
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
We can put our whole heart into whatever we do but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.
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
When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.
Pema Chodron
Image
Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you see a homeless person on the street, and they need food, housing, medical attention - if you can give that, do it. But at the same time, work with tonglen, because that is how you start dissolving the barrier between you and them.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.
Pema Chodron
Image
Patience is not learned in safety.
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
Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.
Pema Chodron
Image
You must learn to sit with the restless, painful energy and not let the momentum pull you under and cause you to do the same thing over and over that's ruining your life and the lives of those around you.
Pema Chodron
Image
Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us.
Pema Chodron
Image
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
Pema Chodron
Image
In the end, that's what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of situation.
Pema Chodron