Pema Chödrön Quotes

183 Sourced Quotes

Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what to accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes you up and what makes you fall asleep. No one else can really sort out for you what to accept - what opens up your world - and what to reject - what seems to keep you going round and round in some kind of repetitive misery.

Pema Chödrön
Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You'd just like to have a little peace, you'd like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break.

Pema Chödrön
If you're aggressive in your dealings, that's how you'll be regarded in the world. You might smile and give generously, but if you frequently explode in anger, people never feel comfortable in your presence and you'll never have peace of mind.

Pema Chödrön
If right now our emotional reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been
cultivating that particular habit for a very long time.

Pema Chödrön
That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything - every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate - is always changing, moment to moment.

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

Pema Chödrön
Being fully present isn't something that happens once and then you have achieved it; it's being awake to the ebb and flow and movement and creation of life, being alive to the process of life itself.

Pema Chödrön
Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It's like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It's like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.

Pema Chödrön
In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with our experience, whatever it is.

Pema Chödrön
We are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness. We [need] to transform our minds and actions for the sake of other people and for the future of the world.

Pema Chödrön
Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.

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
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
The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.

Pema Chödrön
Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.

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

Pema Chödrön
If you look back at history or you look at any place in the world where religious groups or ethnic groups or racial groups or political groups are killing each other, or families have been feuding for years and years, you can see - because you're not particularly invested in that particular argument - that there will never be peace until somebody softens what is rigid in their heart.

Pema Chödrön
Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.

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

Pema Chödrön
All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions.

Pema Chödrön