Pema Chödrön Quotes

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

Making good use of our limited time - the limited time from birth to death, as well as our limited time each day - is the key to developing inner steadiness and calm.

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

Two kinds of selfish people: the unwise and the wise. Unwise selfish people think only of themselves, and the result is confusion and pain. Wise selfish people know that the best thing they can do for themselves is to be there for others. As a result, they experience joy.

It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns. Without maitri (metta), renunciation of old habits becomes abusive. This is an important point.

It's helpful to always remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing withwhatever arises, without picking and choosing.

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.

The first noble truth says simply that it’s part of being human to feel discomfort.

If we emphasized only precision, our meditation might become quite harsh and militant. (...). One thing that is very helpful is to cultivate an overall sense of relaxation while you are doing the meditation.

There isn’t any hell or heaven except for how we relate to our world. Hell is just resistance to life.

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

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are.

Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at their own speed.

The Buddha’s principal message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusion that we draw must be let go. The only way to fully understand the bodhichitta teachings, the only way to practice them fully, is to abide in the unconditional openness of the prajna, patiently cutting through all our tendencies to hang on.

WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.

You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart...

It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.

But often it is a seemingly irresolvable relationship that teaches us the most, once we're willing to be vulnerable and honest, once we're willing to connect with what Chogyam Trungpa called "the genuine heart of sadness." As warriors in training we do our best to hold the person in our heart without any hypocrisy. One thing we can do with a difficult relationship is to place a picture of the person somewhere we will see it often and think, "I wish for your deepest well-being". Or we can write down the person's name, along with the aspiration that they may be safe, may be happy, may live in peace. Regardless of what specific action we take, our aspiration is to benefit the other person and wish them well.

Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.

When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.