Quote

Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

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
Matter
Pathways
Challenging
Awakening
Challenges
Open
Experience
Become
Anything
Pathway

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.
Pema Chodron
Image
So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.
Pema Chodron
Image
We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else.
Pema Chodron
Image
It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play.
Pema Chodron
Image
The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.
Pema Chodron
Image
Each of us has a soft spot: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.
Pema Chodron
Image
Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is true isn’t just a matter of honesty but also of compassion and respect for what we see.
Pema Chodron
Image
Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
The approach is that the best way to use unwanted circumstances on the path of enlightenment is not to resist but to lean into them.
Pema Chodron
Image
Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.
Pema Chodron
Image
Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
Pema Chodron
Image
The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief.
Pema Chodron
Image
Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.
Pema Chodron
Image
Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
Pema Chodron
Image
If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that - then that will take you are far as you can go. And then you'll understand all the teachings that anyone has ever taught.
Pema Chodron