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

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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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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Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
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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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The second noble truth says that this resistance is the...mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.
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In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.
Pema Chodron
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This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.
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Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel. Not to be ashamed of the love and grief that it arouses in us. Not to be afraid of pain. Someone needs to encourage us: that this soft spot in us could be awakened, and that to do this would change our lives.
Pema Chodron
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This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
Pema Chodron
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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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Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.
Pema Chodron
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Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
Pema Chodron
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we come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.
Pema Chodron
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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
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The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.
Pema Chodron
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We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better me who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Appreciate everything, even the ordinary... Especially the ordinary.
Pema Chodron
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Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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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