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Heart Quotes by Pema Chödrön

45 Heart quotes by Pema Chödrön

All Heart quotes Pema Chödrön’s page

Pema Chödrön reminds us that when hurt strikes, the best response is to shift attention instead of shouting back. She suggests placing a hand on the chest to feel the heart and accept the moment as it is. Pain can become a teacher, softening the heart rather than hardening it.

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Softening what is rigid in our hearts...

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“Don’t let life harden your heart.”

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Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself.

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If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.

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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.

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We can begin to open our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting anything back. We just do it…

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If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you.…

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Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.

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Determination means to use every challenge you meet as an opportunity to open your heart and soften, determined to not withdraw.

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The wisdom, the strength, the confidence - the awakened heart and mind are always accessible -- here, now, always.

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The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to…

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Hold the sadness and pain of samsara [suffering, confusion] in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of…

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Remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the…

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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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We can stop thinking that good practice is when it’s smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it’s rough and dark.…

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

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I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind…

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The most complete and true happiness comes in moments when you feel right there, completely present, with no ideas about good and…

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We could learn to stop when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up. We could learn to listen 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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We can put our whole heart into whatever we do; but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting…

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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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When Things Fall Apart” and I quote “Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if…

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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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Meditation accepts us just as we are-in both our tantrums and our bad habits, in our love and commitments and happiness. It…

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When you open yourself to the continually changing, impermanent, dynamic nature of your own being and of reality, you increase your capacity…

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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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Feel the wounded heart that's underneath the addiction, self-loathing, or anger.

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This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we're arrogant and soften us when we…

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The idea of karma is that you continually get the teaching that you need to open your heart.

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So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.

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If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in…

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Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own…

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When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of…

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Next, feel your heart, literally placing your hand on your chest if you find that helpful. This is a way of accepting…

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People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something…

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Relaxing with something as familiar as loneliness is good discipline for realizing the profundity of the unresolved moments of our lives. We…

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If you look back at history or you look at any place in the world where religious groups or ethnic groups or…

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

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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…