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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

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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Year
Shift
Five
Fearful
Experience
Month
Today
Tendencies
Even
Entirely
Angrier
Years
Depends
Reinforce
World
Months
Grasping
Motivational
Occurred

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This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.
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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.
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it is only to the extent that we are willing to expose ourselves again and again to annihilation that we are able to find that part of ourselves that is indestructible.
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Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.
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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)
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If you work with your mind, instead of trying to change everything on the outside, that's how your temper will cool down.
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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.
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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.
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It's important to remember, when we're out there aggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition.
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When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.
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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.
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As for our inner level of obstacle, perhaps the only enemy we have is that we don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we need to acknowledge is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
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Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
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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.
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To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
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If you see a homeless person on the street, and they need food, housing, medical attention - if you can give that, do it. But at the same time, work with tonglen, because that is how you start dissolving the barrier between you and them.
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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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When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?
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But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
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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.
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