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All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.

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
Create
Open
Future
Need
Needs
Wide

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we discover where we're blocked.
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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Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.
Pema Chodron
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Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.
Pema Chodron
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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
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We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.
Pema Chodron
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
Pema Chodron
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To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.
Pema Chodron
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My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay.
Pema Chodron
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Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.
Pema Chodron
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Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.
Pema Chodron
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Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
Pema Chodron
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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.
Pema Chodron
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Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.
Pema Chodron
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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
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Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn't enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.
Pema Chodron
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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
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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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So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.
Pema Chodron
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The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.
Pema Chodron