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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

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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Ever
Goes
Awaiting
Nothing
Taught
Continent
Need
Sides
Continents
Needs
Hours
Arrive
Even
Running
Miles
Away
Hour
Problem
Hundred
Find
Side

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When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?
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Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.
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Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.
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One can appreciate & celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!
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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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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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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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To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.
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Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.
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All situations teach you, and often it's the tough ones that teach you best.
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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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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.
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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.
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When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. (9)
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The biggest obstacle to taking a bigger perspective on life is that our emotions capture and blind us.
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We practice to liberate ourselves from a burden.
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Treat yourself as your own beloved child.
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Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.
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I can't overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be.
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In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.
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