Quote

Tonglen practice begins to dissolve the illusion that each of us is alone with this personal suffering that no one else can understand.

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
Suffering
Understand
Else
Dissolve
Begins
Illusion
Personal
Alone
Practice

More quotes by 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
It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that arises, the rawness and the vulnerability, and sending some kind of warmth and love to that rawness and soreness. I think that's how we have to practice.
Pema Chodron
Image
Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.
Pema Chodron
Image
We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.
Pema Chodron
Image
Surrendering, letting go of possessiveness, and complete nonattachment-all are synonyms for accumulating merit.
Pema Chodron
Image
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
Pema Chodron
Image
To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
Pema Chodron
Image
The Process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality.
Pema Chodron
Image
It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. -Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chodron
Image
All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.
Pema Chodron
Image
Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.
Pema Chodron
Image
Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.
Pema Chodron
Image
The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.
Pema Chodron
Image
By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.
Pema Chodron
Image
This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky - that's called liberation.
Pema Chodron
Image
Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity?
Pema Chodron
Image
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.
Pema Chodron
Image
To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you aren't feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn't have anything to feed on.
Pema Chodron
Image
Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
Pema Chodron