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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.

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
Things
Life
Enter
Wake
Sleep
Rather
Work

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.
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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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
Pema Chodron
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I'm here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
Pema Chodron
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As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . .
Pema Chodron
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All situations teach you, and often it's the tough ones that teach you best.
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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Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
Pema Chodron
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As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the countries of origin. It's just a sign of our culture.
Pema Chodron
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You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else.
Pema Chodron
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Just where you are-that's the place to start!
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear...the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away. (5)
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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Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.
Pema Chodron
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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share.
Pema Chodron
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Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.
Pema Chodron
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Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.
Pema Chodron