Pema Chodron Quotes

Don't shut down the feedback loop with judgment, rigid beliefs, and prejudices.

My son, who's on the spectrum is a very rigid thinker. He needs clear-cut definitions of right and wrong. Anything hazy or gray confuses him. For instance, if I try to get him to see that a friend behaved badly, he'll often get upset with me because a friend is a 'good guy' by definition, in his book.

I'm honest with myself how I feel. If I feel good, I feel good. If I don't - if I'm tight - I don't just try to muscle through everything, because you've got to be a little bit smarter.

Cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them.

When you put aside your preconceived ideas, your self-centered scale of values, and let intuition have its way with you, you open up by this act new levels of the world. Such an opening-up is the most practical of all activities.

People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.

When we focus on others, our world expands.

I feel like the vast majority of the world's problems would disappear if suddenly everyone on the planet were relatively self-aware and capable of honest self-love and compassion.

We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good. We don’t want to be wrong because then we’ll feel bad. But we could be more compassionate toward all these parts of ourselves. The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller. Wanting situations and relationships to be solid, permanent, and graspable obscures the pith of the matter, which is that things are fundamentally groundless.

As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others - what and whom we can work with, and how - becomes wider.

Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in the smoke of confabulation. There can be no peace on earth without the kind of inner change that brings man back to his "right mind." p. 31

By doing the work to love ourselves more, I believe we will love each other better.

I believe a writer's most important skill lies in being able to see things from different perspectives.

Love and compassion benefit both ourselves and others. Through kindness to others, your heart and mind will be peaceful and open.

The student's job is to stay open-minded, to quell the knee-jerk defensiveness we all possess in the face of suggestions for improvement, and to maintain patience when faced with a process that is often slow, confusing, and frustrating.

I'm not really concerned about boundaries. I just follow my conscience and my heart. Follow your heart. That's what I do. Compassion is something I have a lot of, because I've been through a lot of pain in my life. Anybody who has suffered a lot of pain has a lot of compassion.

Anyone who says he is not emotional is not getting what he should out of life.

The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing

We are not evil, inadequate or incompetent when our relationships fail.

Love is as necessary to human beings as food and shelter; [but] without intelligence, ... love is impotent and freedom unattainable.

Realists are, as a rule, only men in the rut of routine who are incapable of transcending a narrow circle of antiquated notions.

The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

I've been ignoring my feelings lately. That works pretty well. Might also settle for less this week, just to try it out.

You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.

A strong egoism is a protection against disease, but in the last resort we must begin to love in order that we may not fall ill, and must fall ill if, in consequence of frustration, we cannot love.