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Fear Quotes by Pema Chödrön

41 Fear quotes by Pema Chödrön

All Fear quotes Pema Chödrön’s page

Staying present with fear can feel like letting go of a safety blanket, exposing the unknown. Pema Chödrön suggests letting curiosity be bigger than that fear, because fear is a natural reaction when we move toward truth. Accepting this can open a quiet groundlessness inside.

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Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth

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Fear itself is the vanguard of wisdom

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Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.

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“Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear.”

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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we…

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Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.

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When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it.

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Feeling irritated, restless, afraid, and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully.

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Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?

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Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.

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Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.

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“What we’re talking about is getting to know fear, becoming familiar with fear, looking it right in the eye—not as a way…

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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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Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to…

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No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear...the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it…

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The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being…

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If seeing that other person's pain brings up your fear or anger or confusion (which often happens), just start doing tonglen for…

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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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“What a predicament! We seem doomed to suffer simply because we have a deep-seated fear of how things really are. Our attempts…

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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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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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On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of…

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Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum. We don't interrupt our patterns even slightly. With practice, however, we learn to stay…

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We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful,…

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“We can explore the nature of that piece of shit. We can know the nature of dislike, shame, and embarrassment and not…

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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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The next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people…

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“Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear. Through…

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“Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to…

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“When we feel dread, when we feel discomfort of any kind, it can connect us at the heart with all the other…

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Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.

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The central question of a warrior's training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.

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We're afraid that this anger or sorrow or loneliness is going to last forever... Instead, acting it out is what makes it…

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A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message…

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It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is a part of being alive, something…

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When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending…

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Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego... Openness…

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Are you experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch?…

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Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then…

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“Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors-people who have a certain hunger…

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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?

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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…