Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Pema Chodron (American Buddhist Nun)

Pema Chödrön (b.1936,) fully Gampo Acharya Ani Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, is an American Tibetan Buddhist nun and a best-selling author. One of the best-known faces of American Buddhism, she is an ordained nun, the former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism, and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Born in New York City, Chödrön obtained a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, and a master’s in elementary education from the University of California, Berkeley. She taught as a schoolteacher for many years in New Mexico and California.

While in her mid-thirties, Chödrön traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years becoming a novice nun in 1974. In 1981, she received the full bhikṣuṇī ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism—she was first American in the Vajrayāna tradition to achieve that distinction.

Chödrön is at the forefront of establishing Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West and is the principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada. In 2020, she stepped down as a Shambhala teacher citing lack of accountability in her lineage’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations against its leader Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.

Chödrön has written several dozen popular books, exploring Buddhist concepts and offers paths to conquering suffering, fear, and difficult times. Her notable works include The Wisdom of No Escape (1991,) Start Where You Are (1994,) When Things Fall Apart (1997,) Comfortable with Uncertainty (2002,) The Places that Scare You (2002,) and Living Beautifully (2019.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Pema Chodron

Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.
Pema Chodron
Topics: Bravery

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
Pema Chodron
Topics: Kindness

If you want to be a complete human being, if you want to be genuine and hold the fullness of life in your heart, then failure is an opportunity to get curious about what is going on and listen to the storylines. Don’t buy the ones that blame it on everybody else, and don’t buy the storylines that blame it on yourself either.
Pema Chodron

As soon as you begin to believe in something, then you can no longer see anything else. The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Pema Chodron
Topics: Belief

Refraining is very powerful because it gives us an opportunity to acknowledge when we’re caught and then to get unstuck.
Pema Chodron

What’s encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance
Pema Chodron
Topics: Meditation

Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others.
Pema Chodron
Topics: Compassion

What we call ‘I’ is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. When your mind is… calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing, no world, no mind nor body, just a swinging door.
Pema Chodron

It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it’s how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.
Pema Chodron
Topics: Perspective

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