Skip to content

Inspirational Quotes by Pema Chödrön

74 Inspirational quotes by Pema Chödrön

All Inspirational quotes Pema Chödrön’s page

A moment that feels completely fresh shows us that each instant is unique and unknown. The quotes highlight the need for self‑compassion before caring for others, and how suffering can open the door to deeper wisdom. They also remind us to let go of resistance to reconnect with our true self.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Compassion starts with making friends with ourselves.

Image

Use your life to wake you up.

Image

Holding on to anything blocks wisdom.

Image

Every moment is unique, unknown, completely fresh.

Image

When resistance is gone, the demons are gone.

Image

Fear itself is the vanguard of wisdom

Image

Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.

Image

Feel the feelings and drop the story.

Image

When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something.

Image

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.

Image

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both...Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both.

Image

What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.

Image

If you ask why we meditate, I would say it's so we can become more flexible and tolerant to the present moment.

Image

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

Image

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

Image

Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future.

Image

Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us.

Image

It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the…

Image

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

Image

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we night as well work…

Image

“The key instruction is to stay in the present. Don't get caught up in hopes of what you'll achieve and how good…

Image

We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.

Image

The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are…

Image

When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a…

Image

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

Image

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

Image

Affirmations are like screaming that you're okay in order to overcome this whisper that you're not. That's a big contrast to actually…

Image

Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way, a very powerful…

Image

Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when…

Image

“We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the…

Image

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

Image

To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

Image

Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.

Image

The future is the result of what we do right now.

Image

Never underestimate the desire to bolt.

Image

Softening what is rigid in our hearts...

Image

The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion.

Image

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

Image

The more neurosis the more wisdom.

Image

The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself.

Image

Other authors on Inspirational

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…