Pema Chodron Quotes

Being a good steward of your pain. . . . It involves being alive to your life. It involves taking the risk of being open, of reaching out, of keeping in touch with the pain as well as the joy of what happens because at no time more than at a painful time do we live out of the depths of who we are instead of out of the shallows.

The awareness is not part of the darkness or the pain; it holds the pain, and knows it, so it has to be more fundamental, and closer to what is healthy and strong and golden within you.

That's the way I try to live. I think it's the only way for human beings at this point in our evolution as souls, where everyone in their lifetime is going through stuff.

Ultimately spiritual awareness unfolds when you're flexible, when you're spontaneous, when you're detached, when you're easy on yourself and easy on others.

It's OK to feel pain and experience it. I'm not trying to fix myself. My suffering has given me so much.

We live in a society running from pain through alcohol, through too much exercise, through sugar, through drugs - as opposed to realizing that these things come up because they are lessons. It's a way to wake you up.

Strength doesn't necessarily come from resisting fear, weakness, or any other feeling and overcoming it. Strength comes from looking at those things straight on--and accepting them as they really are.

It takes courage and intelligence, you know, to do the stages of Yoga right, and to start with this Hatha Yoga… It’s just you and nothing but you, standing in one spot frozen like a statue with no place to go for help or excuse or scapegoat except inward.

As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn.

You will know how to stop suffering as soon as suffering ceases to be valuable. If you are in pain, you are being led.

I'm learning a lot by reading teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron. They teach me because I feel like I have a responsibility to the communities that I speak to.

A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it's time to stop struggling and look directly at what's threatening us.

If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. Welcome and entertain them all!

The pain is always bringing me a lesson. If I listen to the lesson when the pain is manageable, the pain won't get gargantuan and flatten me entirely, because I will have received the message at the center. I receive it as gently as I can, because the cruelest thing that I do to myself is try to push myself through an experience.

The first level of practice is illuminated by the qualities of courage and renunciation.

Going into our fear and confronting our greed, our weaknesses, our neediness is the way out. And the way out is through the mind, by choosing our thoughts.

The fears you run from run to you.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy

The hardest thing to remember is that what we each really want is the truth of our lives, good or bad. Not rocking the boat is an illusion that can only be maintained by the unspoken agreement not to feel and in the long run it never really works. Let go of saving the boat and save the passengers instead.

You begin to understand that warriorship is a path or a thread that runs through your entire life. It is not just a technique that you apply when you are unhappy or depressed. Warriorship is a continual journey. To be a warrior is to learn to be genuine in every moment of your life. That is the warrior's discipline

Don't let mistakes be so monumental, don't let your love be so confidential, don't let your mind be so darn judgemental, and please let your heart be more influential. Be thankful for all that the spirit provides and be thankful for all that you see without eyes.

Living fearlessly is not the same as never being afraid. It's good to be afraid occasionally. Fear is a great teacher.

There have been many people for whom limitations, failure, loss, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility and compassion. It made them more real.

Live with your lips pressed against your fears, kissing your fears, neither pulling back nor aggressively violating them.