Quote

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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Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Vulnerable
Pain
Tender
Experience
Spot
Place
Inherent
Feel
Soft
Feels
Spots
Love
Equally
Appreciation

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?
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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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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
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I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening.
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Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
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When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space.
Pema Chodron
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The future is the result of what we do right now.
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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.
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Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.
Pema Chodron
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When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down.
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Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
Pema Chodron
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If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and we'll find that more areas of our lives are workable. AS we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others-what and whom we can work with, and how-becomes wider.
Pema Chodron
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean.
Pema Chodron
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We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.
Pema Chodron
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Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.
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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None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine.
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.
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The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
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When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure.
Pema Chodron