Quote

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

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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Learn
Reaction
Pain
Chains
Experience
Reactions
Doesn
Ease
Way
Fully
Tightening
Life
Rule
Uneasiness
Continue
Habitual
Stay
Chain

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is a part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
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Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.
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This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
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We don't set out to save the world we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
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Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
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Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
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Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
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So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.
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Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.
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Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape - all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.
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Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment-all are synonyms for accumulating merit.
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Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.
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We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
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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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Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.
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We practice to liberate ourselves from a burden.
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Use your life to wake you up.
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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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The Process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality.
Pema Chodron