Pema Chodron Quotes

Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.

Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.

We're all spending way too much of our time and energy trying to fight the stuff we can't change.

When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did.

I think if I had just slowed down a little bit it could have a little easier. I multiplied how difficult it needed to be instead of just saying, fair enough. You don't have to make it hard.

Buddhism teaches you to embrace change.

I'm a Buddhist, so one of my biggest beliefs is, 'Everything changes, don't take it personally.'

We are all going to have to see pain if we are going to bring about change.

The struggle to make people understand the need for change is over.

I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.

The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain.

Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep. We don't know how to let go. We're like a Jack-in-the-box perched on top of a spring and the more we struggle the harder it is to get back in the box.

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

I do a lot of reading on Buddhist philosophy, and a Buddhist nun named Pema Chödrön talks a lot about acceptance. It's one of the main tenets of Buddhism - accepting that what is, is. The root of our suffering is when we just don't want to accept a truth. We want something to be different than it is.

The root of suffering is resisting the certainty that no matter what the circumstances, uncertainty is all we truly have.

Without resistance you can do nothing

You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself

If you completely accept something, it changes. If you completely accept it, it shifts.

Let-go means no competition, no struggle, no fight... just relaxing with existence, wherever it leads. Not trying to control your future, not trying to control consequences, but allowing them to happen... not even thinking about them. Let-go is in the present; consequences are tomorrow. And let-go is such a delightful experience, a total relaxation, a deep synchronicity with existence

Meditation is a tool for helping us accept the profound fact that everything changes all the time.

Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be.

You don't need to suffer anymore. You've suffered enough to take you to this point where you hear the words, "You don't need to suffer anymore," and you understand them. You recognize their truth and you then see that you do have a choice ­ that you can surrender to the suchness of now, which means every moment to relinquish resistance and if it still arises, to recognize it.

What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?

Acceptance is the magic that makes change possible. It is not forever, it is for the present moment