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Softening what is rigid in our hearts.

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
Softening
Rigid
Hearts
Heart

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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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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.
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Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel.
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We practice to liberate ourselves from a burden.
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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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If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
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What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.
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As for our inner level of obstacle, perhaps the only enemy we have is that we don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we need to acknowledge is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
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Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.
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it is only to the extent that we are willing to expose ourselves again and again to annihilation that we are able to find that part of ourselves that is indestructible.
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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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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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Never underestimate the desire to bolt.
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It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play.
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Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.
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By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.
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Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.
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Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.
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Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.
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Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.
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