Pema Chodron Quotes

Only a deep attention to the whole of our life can bring us the capacity to love well and live freely.

When they attack you and you notice that you love them with all your heart, your Work is done.

You can change your life with a simple shift of attention. But to make that simple shift, you have to find your heart. It's the only way. Accept yourself, then transcend yourself.

I focus on spiritual wealth now, and I'm busier, more enthusiastic, and more joyful than I have ever been.

I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we're all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose... When you connect with that love and that compassion, that's when everything unfolds.

I love acting. It's my playground; it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting. My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind.

Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

Resentments and grudges are two of the main culprits that perpetuate cycles of self-abuse and victimhood. Stowed away inside you like parasites, they deplete you of your God-given life force and separate you from your inherent worth, your joy, and the love in your heart.

Compassion is the key to living outside the confines of your lower self.

Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.

To be able to love and live in freedom means to be able to make godly decisions. To make godly decisions we have to surrender our egos and all the falsity and shame that goes with it.

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

The only journey is the one within.

When we learn new behaviors and break through to higher levels of consciousness and love, we can fulfill the deeper spiritual hunger within.

I just want to find some inner peace, and I think I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

The great solution to all human problems is individual inner transformation.

I was constantly looking for things outside of myself to make me feel good, and I think now that feeling can come from the inside, and that's why I meditate now twice a day.

Sobriety has opened my mind and unlocked parts of me that I didn't even realize existed.

I feel like the sky in my mind is bigger when I meditate. It helps you fight the classic battles we're all fighting: trying to find love, trying to find satisfaction in your career.

The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them.

Every truth ever discovered -- each new light that will ever burn bright -- already exists in our consciousness. All we will ever know and share about love, humility, compassion, and sacrifice -- the secrets that will reveal and then resolve old sorrows -- awaits us within ourselves. Hidden in this truth is our great promise, both as individuals and as a race of beings.

Another fresh new year is here . . . Another year to live! To banish worry, doubt, and fear, To love and laugh and give! This bright new year is given me To live each day with zest . . . To daily grow and try to be My highest and my best! I have the opportunity Once more to right some wrongs, To pray for peace, to plant a tree, And sing more joyful songs!

The ordinary man is living a very abnormal life, because his values are upside down. Money is more important than meditation; logic is more important than love; mind is more important than heart; power over others is more important than power over one's own being. Mundane things are more important than finding some treasures which death cannot destroy.

A teacher cannot give you the truth The truth is already in you You only need to open yourself – body, mind and heart- so that his or her teachings will penetrate your own seeds of understanding and enlightenment If you let the words enter you, the soil and the seeds will do the rest of the work