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We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.

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
World
Wrong
Business
Makes
Whole
Right
Feel
Feels
Closes
Good
Smaller

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.
Pema Chodron
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If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart.
Pema Chodron
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Each of us has a soft spot: the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron
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Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape - all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.
Pema Chodron
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In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness , as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It is our capacity to relax with not knowing, not figuring everything out, with not being at all sure who we are, or who anyone else is, either.
Pema Chodron
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The central question of a warrior's training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.
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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Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
Pema Chodron
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When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior’s perspective and contact bodhichitta?
Pema Chodron
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What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.
Pema Chodron
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Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?
Pema Chodron
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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
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If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
Pema Chodron
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The more neurosis the more wisdom.
Pema Chodron
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None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.
Pema Chodron
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Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.
Pema Chodron
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Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.
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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This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
Pema Chodron