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Buddhism Quotes by Pema Chödrön

47 Buddhism quotes by Pema Chödrön

All Buddhism quotes Pema Chödrön’s page

Every day offers a fresh chance to work toward enlightenment, according to the quotes. They warn that resisting change brings suffering, while opening the heart lets anyone, even a difficult person, become a teacher. The teachings also note that life rests on a deep sense of groundlessness.

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Enlightenment is a direct experience with reality.

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Buddhism itself is all about empowering yourself, not about getting what you want.

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Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment.

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Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

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Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

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“When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of enlightenment.”

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As Buddhism moved from one culture to another, it always adapted.

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“Like a treasure found at home, enriching me without fatigue, you, my dear troublemaker, are the means by which a confused person…

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We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be,…

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As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the…

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Simply be present with your own shifting energies and with the unpredictabilit y of life as it unfolds.

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Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.

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Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life.…

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Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.

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This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky - that's called liberation.

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In the most ordinary terms, egolessness is a flexible identity. It manifests as inquisitiveness , as adaptability, as humor, as playfulness. It…

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Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach…

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“An emotion like anger that's an automatic response lasts just ninety seconds from the moment it's triggered until it runs its course.…

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“But we don’t have to close down when we feel groundlessness in any form. Instead, we can turn toward it and say,…

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Underneath our ordinary lives, underneath all the talking we do, all the moving we do, all the thoughts in our minds, there's…

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Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not…

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“When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can…

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“The calligraphy reads, “Pointing directly at your own heart, you find Buddha.” Listening to talks about the dharma, or the teachings of…

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“LEARNING HOW to be kind to ourselves is important. When we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is…

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That could be applied to whatever you feel. Maybe anger is your thing. You just go out of control and you see…

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“Even though peak experiences might show us the truth and inform us about why we are training, they are essentially no big…

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“Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that…

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“When one of the emperors of China asked Bodhidharma (the Zen master who brought Zen from India to China) what enlightenment was,…

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“Rather than going after these walls and barriers with a sledgehammer, we pay attention to them. With gentleness and honesty, we move…

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“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass…

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“This is where renunciation enters the picture--renunciation of the hope that our experience could be different, renunciation of the hope that we…

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“There was once a lady who was arrogant and proud. Determined to attain enlightenment, she asked all the authorities how to go…

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“One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food,…

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“Buddha is our inherent nature—our buddha nature—and what that means is that if you’re going to grow up fully, the way that…

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“In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and…

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“Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that…

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The approach is that the best way to use unwanted circumstances on the path of enlightenment is not to resist but to…

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If there's any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. Now is the time.

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“As the twelfth-century Tibetian yogi Milarepa said when he heard of his student Gampopa's peak experiences, 'They are neither good nor bad.…

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“When the world is filled with evil, all mishaps, all difficulties, should be transformed into the path of enlightenment.”

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More by Pema Chödrön

“LIFE’S work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.…

Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?

Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with…

The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.

“If the object of meditation were something concrete, something solid and graspable - an image or a statue or a dot on the floor…

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as…

“The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it…

If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we…

“But in this meditation technique, we are with the out-breath; there's no particular instruction about what to do until the next out-breath.”

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. Perhaps…

So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn't sit for even…

If you have rage and righteously act it out and blame it all on others, it's really you who suffers. The other people and…

“When we realize that the path is the goal, there’s a sense of workability. Trungpa Rinpoche said, “Whatever occurs in the confused mind is…

Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment.

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be…