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If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a long, last real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop-everything.

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
Looks
Dust
Specks
Take
Clouds
Blade
Real
Blind
Blades
Going
Knew
Formation
Every
Lasts
Cloud
Long
Last
Rainbow
Raindrop
Would
Look
Tonight
Speck
Everything
Grass
Raindrops

More quotes by 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.
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Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.
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The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.
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Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
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You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
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Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.
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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.
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The future is the result of what we do right now.
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We're afraid that this anger or sorrow or loneliness is going to last forever... Instead, acting it out is what makes it last.
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Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life it might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.
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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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As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
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Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.
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All situations teach you, and often it's the tough ones that teach you best.
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Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.
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Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.
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As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the countries of origin. It's just a sign of our culture.
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Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.
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The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
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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.
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