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It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play.

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
Believe
Drama
Move
Possible
Moving
Lives
Character
Without
Earnestly
Play
Believing

More quotes by 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.
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My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay.
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Searching for happiness prevents us from ever finding it.
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Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.
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While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.
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According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.
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Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.
Pema Chodron
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The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
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True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.
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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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By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.
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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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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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Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us.
Pema Chodron
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We can put our whole heart into whatever we do but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.
Pema Chodron
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Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego... Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well.
Pema Chodron
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Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
Pema Chodron
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Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.
Pema Chodron
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To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.
Pema Chodron
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We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.
Pema Chodron