Quote

So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.

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
Many
Realize
Healing
Must
Realizing
Ugly
Real
Path
Parts
Start
Consider
Suffering
Compassion
Spiritual
Along
Firsts
Especially
Occur
First
Deep
Dislike

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
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
Image
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.
Pema Chodron
Image
Ego is something that you come to know - something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
we come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world.
Pema Chodron
Image
All the terrible things we do to ourselves and others from alcoholism to character assignation to abuse to murder come from one cause: the inability to stay present with an uncomfortable feeling in the body and seek short-term relief.
Pema Chodron
Image
Appreciate everything, even the ordinary... Especially the ordinary.
Pema Chodron
Image
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.
Pema Chodron
Image
Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.
Pema Chodron
Image
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.
Pema Chodron
Image
Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.
Pema Chodron
Image
In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.
Pema Chodron
Image
Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
Pema Chodron
Image
Few of us are satisfied with retreating from the world and just working on ourselves. We want our training to manifest and to be of benefit. The bodhisattva-warrior, therefore, makes a vow to wake up not just for himself but for the welfare of all beings.
Pema Chodron
Image
The more neurosis the more wisdom.
Pema Chodron
Image
Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.
Pema Chodron
Image
Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.
Pema Chodron
Image
When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment
Pema Chodron
Image
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
Pema Chodron
Image
We're afraid that this anger or sorrow or loneliness is going to last forever... Instead, acting it out is what makes it last.
Pema Chodron