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We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

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
Robs
Hold
Present
Moment
Hope
Moments

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.
Pema Chodron
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
Pema Chodron
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While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.
Pema Chodron
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All the terrible things we do to ourselves and others from alcoholism to character assignation to abuse to murder come from one cause: the inability to stay present with an uncomfortable feeling in the body and seek short-term relief.
Pema Chodron
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Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.
Pema Chodron
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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
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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.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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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
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This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
Pema Chodron
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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
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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.
Pema Chodron
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Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.
Pema Chodron
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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
Pema Chodron
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The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.
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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Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.
Pema Chodron
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We don't set out to save the world we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts.
Pema Chodron
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Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.
Pema Chodron
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We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better me who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.
Pema Chodron