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Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.

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
Moving
Closer
Fear
Reactions
Experience
Staying
Become
Escape
Truth
Commit
Right
Becomes
Vivid
Things
Clear
Reaction
Natural
Nowhere

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.
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Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.
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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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It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
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The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
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But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
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Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.
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The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves.
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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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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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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
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Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
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Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.
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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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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.
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We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.
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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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When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
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