Pema Chödrön Quotes

183 Sourced Quotes

The real thing that we renounce is the tenacious hope that we could be saved from being who we are.

Pema Chödrön
Patience takes courage. It is not an ideal state of calm. In fact, when we practice patience we will see our agitation far more clearly.

Pema Chödrön
A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next.

Pema Chödrön
Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.

Pema Chödrön
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 Chödrön
The idea of karma is that you continually get the teaching that you need to open your heart.

Pema Chödrön
Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.

Pema Chödrön
Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.

Pema Chödrön
We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.

Pema Chödrön
Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.

Pema Chödrön
We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment.

Pema Chödrön
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.

Pema Chödrön
One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.

Pema Chödrön
I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening.

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

Pema Chödrön
Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will.

Pema Chödrön
Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is called maitri, or unconditional friendliness, a simple, direct relationship with the way we are.

Pema Chödrön
We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

Pema Chödrön
By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.

Pema Chödrön
If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.

Pema Chödrön
Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can - a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement - we are training in letting go.

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

Pema Chödrön
We can put our whole heart into whatever we do; but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting ourselves up for stress. Instead, we could just go forward with curiosity, wondering where this experiment will lead. This kind of open-ended inquisitiveness captures the spirit of enthusiasm, or heroic perseverance.

Pema Chödrön
As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.

Pema Chödrön
This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.

Pema Chödrön
How will we experience the world a month, a year, or five years from now? Will we be even angrier, more grasping and fearful, or will some shift have occurred? This depends entirely on the tendencies we reinforce today.

Pema Chödrön
The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought.

Pema Chödrön
Until we stop clinging to the concept of good and evil, the world will continue to manifest as friendly goddesses and harmful demons.

Pema Chödrön
Relaxing with something as familiar as loneliness is good discipline for realizing the profundity of the unresolved moments of our lives. We are cheating ourselves when we run away from the ambiguity of loneliness.....Rather than persecuting yourself or feeling that something terribly wrong is happening, right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart?

Pema Chödrön
You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.

Pema Chödrön