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Compassion Quotes by Pema Chödrön

53 Compassion quotes by Pema Chödrön

All Compassion quotes Pema Chödrön’s page

Pema Chödrön teaches that true compassion starts with seeing ourselves as kin to all beings. She says we must first be kind to our own hearts before we can help others. The quotes also suggest that compassion is an equal relationship, often mixed with humor, and that it can free us from self‑destructive patterns.

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Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

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Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.

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Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others.

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Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on.

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Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

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The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself.

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In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.

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True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all…

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“We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in,…

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It becomes increasingly clear that we won’t be free of self-destructive patterns unless we develop a compassionate understanding of what they are.

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We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on…

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“Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we…

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“We start by working with the monsters in our mind. Then we develop the wisdom and compassion to communicate sanely with the…

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

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Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.

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Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggressionat our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we…

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When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to…

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When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it…

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The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we…

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Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results,…

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If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and…

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“We awaken this bodhichitta, this tenderness for life, when we can no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from…

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Compassion isn't some kind of self-improvement project or ideal that we're trying to live up to. Having compassion starts and ends with…

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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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“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts…

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At least once a year, I imagine that I am about to die. Looking back as truthfully as I can at my…

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“we have the incredible fortune of living alongside wise men and women from many traditions who give us these kinds of messages…

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Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate…

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In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we  breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it, and…

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For arousing compassion, the nineteenth-century yogi Patrul Rinpoche suggested imagining beings in torment - an animal about to be slaughtered, a person…

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The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought.…

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“Laziness is not particularly terrible or wonderful. Rather it has a basic living quality that deserves to be experienced just as it…

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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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“The ground of not causing harm is mindfulness, a sense of clear seeing with respect and compassion for what it is we…

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“In order to be gentle and create an atmosphere of compassion for yourself, it’s necessary to stop talking to yourself about how…

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Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

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we come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In…

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We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and…

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Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.

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“What we hate in ourselves, we’ll hate in others. To the degree that we have compassion for ourselves, we will also have…

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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…