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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Robert Thurman American Buddhist Scholar
- The 14th Dalai Lama Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader
- Alan Watts British-American Philosopher
- D. T. Suzuki Japanese Buddhist Philosopher
- Joseph Goldstein American Buddhist Teacher
- Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader
- Natalie Goldberg American Buddhist Author
- Nagarjuna Indian Buddhist Philosopher
- Janet Erskine Stuart English Catholic Nun
- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche Tibetan Buddhist Teacher
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