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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.

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
Well
Resisting
Openness
Fears
Getting
Rather
Doesn
Wells
Come

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Use your life to wake you up.
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At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
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When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down.
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All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.
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Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.
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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.
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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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Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.
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It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are.
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Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
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Every small problem most likely stems from the same root as large problems, and so there is no need to always go deep. One can use anything for the therapeutic process and/if this link is made.
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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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If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
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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.
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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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Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.
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The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief.
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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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If you see a homeless person on the street, and they need food, housing, medical attention - if you can give that, do it. But at the same time, work with tonglen, because that is how you start dissolving the barrier between you and them.
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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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