Pema Chodron Quotes

Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life.

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.

In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others.

I'm here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away.

Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.

Fear itself is the vanguard of wisdom

Every small problem most likely stems from the same root as large problems, and so there is no need to always go deep. One can use anything for the therapeutic process and/if this link is made.

What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.

We practice to liberate ourselves from a burden.

The more neurosis the more wisdom.

Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.

Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what's out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.

By becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, we awaken our unlimited potential.

Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.

To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.

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.

As Buddhism moved from one culture to another, it always adapted.

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.

My moods are continuously shifting like the weather.

According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.

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

Tonglen dissolves your solid sense of "I'm the wise person, I'm going to help this poor, unfortunate loser."

We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being, gradually becoming more aware of what causes happiness as well as what causes distress.

Meditation practice is not about later, when you get it all together and you’re this person you really respect.

Meditation is a totally nonviolent, nonaggressive occupation.

IN practicing meditation, we’re not trying to live up to some kind of ideal—quite the opposite.

Many religions have meditations on death to let it penetrate our thick skulls that life doesn’t last forever.

In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and unconditional friendliness: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts.

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better.

PATIENCE is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path.

In Buddha’s opinion, to train in staying open and curious—to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs—is the best use of our human lives.