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There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. Patience implies willingness to be alive rather than trying to seek harmony.
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
Patience
Patterns
Harmony
Seek
Cultivation
Alive
Implies
Rather
Pattern
Everything
Smooth
Trying
Willingness
More quotes by Pema Chodron
It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.
Pema Chodron
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
Pema Chodron
Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.
Pema Chodron
None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.
Pema Chodron
Only in an open, nonjudgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly.
Pema Chodron
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
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
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron
Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity?
Pema Chodron
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
Pema Chodron
When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. (9)
Pema Chodron
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
You must learn to sit with the restless, painful energy and not let the momentum pull you under and cause you to do the same thing over and over that's ruining your life and the lives of those around you.
Pema Chodron
We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.
Pema Chodron
Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in the uncertainty of the present moment—over and over again.
Pema Chodron
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
We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it’s a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it’s all mixed up together, it’s us: humanness.
Pema Chodron
This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
Pema Chodron
If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
Pema Chodron
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
