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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
Come
Well
Resisting
Openness
Fears
Getting
Rather
Doesn
Wells

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
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Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.
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Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don't interrupt our patterns slightly. When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?
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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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Until we stop clinging to the concept of good and evil, the world will continue to manifest as friendly goddesses and harmful demons.
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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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Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.
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Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You'd just like to have a little peace, you'd like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break.
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Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.
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That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. Everything is in process.
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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
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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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People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all.
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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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At some point, we realize that what we do for ourselves benefits others, and what we do for others benefits us.
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Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.
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If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider.
Pema Chodron
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At the root of all the harm we cause is ignorance.
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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.
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If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
Pema Chodron