Pema Chodron

Buddhist Teacher, Author

Pema Chodron is a prominent Buddhist nun and author known for her teachings on compassion and embracing life's difficulties.

Heart Spiritual Pain Buddhist Compassion Suffering

Born: July 14, 1936
Quotes: 453
Rank: #251

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Pema Chodron quotes (page 20 of 23)

453 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Pema Chodron Buddhist Teacher, Author

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"Take three conscious breaths. Just pause. Let it be a contrast to being all caught up. Let it be like popping a bubble. Let it be just a moment in time, and then go on. Maybe you are on your way to whatever you need to do for the day. You are in your car, or on the bus, or standing in line. But you can still create that gap by taking three conscious breaths and being right there with the immediacy of your experience, right there with whatever you are seeing, with whatever you are doing, with whatever you are feeling."

Car Feelings Three

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"It is a commitment to respect whatever life brings that we develop wholehearted determination to use discomfort as an opportunity for awakening, rather than trying to make it disappear."

Determination Commitment Opportunity

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"This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure."

Pain Pleasure Tendencies

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"The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain."

Emotional Meditation Easier

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"The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last—that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security."

Believe Long Suffering

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"Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters."

What Matters Achieve Caught

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"The Buddha taught that we're not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea. But when you let things be as they are, you will be a much happier, more balanced, compassionate person."

Ideas Scary Taught

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"There is no cultivation of patience when your pattern is to just try to seek harmony and smooth everything out. Patience implies willingness to be alive rather than trying to seek harmony."

Trying Patterns Alive

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"Patience is not learned in safety."

Safety

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"There's something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one's self, you know?"

Self Faults Findings

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"Holding on to anything blocks wisdom."

Block Holding On

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"It's important to remember, when we're out there aggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn't get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition."

Giving Up Issues Justice

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"It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play."

Drama Believe Moving

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"We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it’s a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it’s all mixed up together, it’s us: humanness."

Beautiful Interesting Together

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"If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside."

Mind Suffering Alleviate

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"My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay."

Spiritual Buddhist Philosophy

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"Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?"

Growing Up Grows Relate

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"We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds. (36)"

Escaping Mind Monsters

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"The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves."

Letting Go Suffering Noble

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"We could learn to stop when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up. We could learn to listen to the wind; we could learn to notice that it's raining or snowing or hailing or calm. We could reconnect with the weather that is ourselves, and we could realize that it's sad. The sadder it is, and the vaster it is, the more our heart opens. We can stop thinking that good practice is when it's smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it's rough and dark. If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea."

Rain Heart Dark

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