Pema Chodron Quotes

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.

Buddha's doctrine: Man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent...this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.

To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering.

Buddhism maintains that the common reaction of the human mind to pleasure and to achievement is not satisfaction; it's craving for more.

In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease: Only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace Whose inhabitants have the eternal release.

Buddha says there are two kinds of suffering: the kind that leads to more suffering and the kind that brings an end to suffering.

The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves.

One of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect.

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

Now this, monks, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; seperation from what is pleasing is suffering... in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth. Suffering is part of life, and we don’t have to feel it’s happening because we personally made the wrong move. In reality, however, when we feel suffering, we think that something is wrong. As long as we’re addicted to hope, we feel that we can tone our experience down or liven it up or change it somehow, and we continue to suffer a lot.

Buddhism has to do with your daily life, with your suffering and with the suffering of the people around you.

All misery and pain come from attachment.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief.

The ego says, I shouldn't have to suffer, and that thought makes you suffer so much more.

A virtuous man or woman who is determined to develop the Supreme Enlightened Mind, should thus develop it: I have to lead all living beings to put a stop to (reincarnation) and escape (suffering), and when they have been so led, not one of them in fact stops (reincarnating) or escapes suffering. Why? Because, if a Bodhisattva believes in the notion of an ego, a personality, or a living being, he is not a true Bodhisattva.

There's a lot of me in it. But the character is more egotistical. I'm also egotistical, but not the way the character is. This guy is successful, he has everything, but his wife has left him. The most important value - love - is missing. What is wrong with this institution called 'marriage'? What is wrong with this institution called 'the pursuit of happiness'?

Whatever pretended causes we may blame our afflictions upon, it is often nothing but self-interest and vanity that produce them.

The ego is an island in the ocean of Hell. You want to get rid of the Hell but you don't want to get rid of that island. Then there is trouble.

All conflict comes from attachment.

If I am identified with my relationship, with my house, or with my money, I am doomed to suffer.

The Buddha taught that all life is suffering. We might also say that life, being both attractive and constantly dangerous, is intoxicating and ultimately toxic. 'Toxic' comes from toxicon, Pendell tells us, with a root meaning of 'a poisoned arrow.' All organic life is struck by the arrows of real and psychic poisons. This is understood by any true, that is to say, not self-deluding, spiritual path.

The end of suffering does not justify the suffering, and so there is no end to suffering.

We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.