Quote

Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.

Pema Chodron

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Friends
Obstacles
Stuck
Teach

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
In truth, there is enormous space in which to live our everyday lives.
Pema Chodron
Image
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Pema Chodron
Image
We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
To live is to be willing to die over and over again.
Pema Chodron
Image
Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditional friendliness, a simple, direct relationship with the way we are.
Pema Chodron
Image
At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
Pema Chodron
Image
This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky - that's called liberation.
Pema Chodron
Image
Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. Patience implies willingness to be alive rather than trying to seek harmony.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.
Pema Chodron
Image
Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.
Pema Chodron
Image
Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.
Pema Chodron
Image
How will we experience the world a month, a year, or five years from now? Will we be even angrier, more grasping and fearful, or will some shift have occurred? This depends entirely on the tendencies we reinforce today.
Pema Chodron
Image
By becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, we awaken our unlimited potential.
Pema Chodron
Image
Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.
Pema Chodron
Image
The most complete and true happiness comes in moments when you feel right there, completely present, with no ideas about good and bad, right and wrong - just a sense of open heart and open mind.
Pema Chodron