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The wisdom, the strength, the confidence - the awakened heart and mind are always accessible -- here, now, always.

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
Strength
Wisdom
Heart
Mind
Always
Accessible
Awakened
Confidence

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively.
Pema Chodron
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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
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The biggest obstacle to taking a bigger perspective on life is that our emotions capture and blind us.
Pema Chodron
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Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.
Pema Chodron
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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing.
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
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Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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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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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
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It's important to remember, when we're out there aggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition.
Pema Chodron
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When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron
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Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron