Quote

I can't overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be.

Pema Chodron

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Thinking
Overestimate
Exactly
Importance
Accepting
Ought
Wish
Right
Think

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
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
Image
Difficult people are the greatest teachers.
Pema Chodron
Image
When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?
Pema Chodron
Image
The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, 'I wonder what's going to happen today.' And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.
Pema Chodron
Image
As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.
Pema Chodron
Image
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
Image
The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last—that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security.
Pema Chodron
Image
It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Pema Chodron
Image
Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel. Not to be ashamed of the love and grief that it arouses in us. Not to be afraid of pain. Someone needs to encourage us: that this soft spot in us could be awakened, and that to do this would change our lives.
Pema Chodron
Image
A heartfelt sense of aspiring cuts through negativity about yourself it cuts through the heavy trips you lay on yourself.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.
Pema Chodron
Image
The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.
Pema Chodron
Image
This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.
Pema Chodron
Image
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
Pema Chodron
Image
In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.
Pema Chodron
Image
It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron