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Tonglen is a way for you to be with people who need you - beginning with yourself.

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
People
Beginning
Need
Needs
Way

More quotes by Pema Chodron

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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
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One can appreciate & celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more!
Pema Chodron
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You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else.
Pema Chodron
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Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.
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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Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.
Pema Chodron
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Allow situations in your life to become your teacher.
Pema Chodron
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Use your life to wake you up.
Pema Chodron
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Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you're always standing at the center of the world.
Pema Chodron
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A heartfelt sense of aspiring cuts through negativity about yourself it cuts through the heavy trips you lay on yourself.
Pema Chodron
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Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.
Pema Chodron
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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
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It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns. Without maitri (metta), renunciation of old habits becomes abusive. This is an important point.
Pema Chodron
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If there's any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. Now is the time.
Pema Chodron
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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is true isn’t just a matter of honesty but also of compassion and respect for what we see.
Pema Chodron
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Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.
Pema Chodron
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This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure.
Pema Chodron
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Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
Pema Chodron
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We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
Pema Chodron
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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.
Pema Chodron