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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.

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
Sympathy
Confusion
Develop
Understanding
Idea
Ideas

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
Pema Chodron
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Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel.
Pema Chodron
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Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.
Pema Chodron
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To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Pema Chodron
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When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment
Pema Chodron
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It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. -Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chodron
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Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.
Pema Chodron
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At some point, we realize that what we do for ourselves benefits others, and what we do for others benefits us.
Pema Chodron
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Use your life to wake you up.
Pema Chodron
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We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.
Pema Chodron
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The more neurosis the more wisdom.
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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When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.
Pema Chodron
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Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.
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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If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.
Pema Chodron
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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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We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
Pema Chodron
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I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind to the person or situation that's right in front of you, and you miss so much.
Pema Chodron
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Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.
Pema Chodron