Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared. — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
In the end, that's what we all need more than anything else: to be there for each other, in every kind of… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
In practicing meditation, we're not trying to live up to some kind of ideal -- quite the opposite. We're just being with… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
The best spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and say, 'I wonder what's going to happen today.' And… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
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… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that… — Pema Chodron Copy Share 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… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness, our protective shells will melt, and… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what to accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
We can put our whole heart into whatever we do; but if we freeze our attitude into for or against, we're setting… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
Some of us can accept others right where they are a lot more easily than we can accept ourselves. We feel that… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful,… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
“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.… — Pema Chödrön Copy Share Image
Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing? — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
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… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves. — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
“If the object of meditation were something concrete, something solid and graspable - an image or a statue or a dot on the floor… — Pema Chödrön Copy Share Image
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… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
“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… — Pema Chödrön Copy Share Image
If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
“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.” — Pema Chödrön Copy Share Image
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. Perhaps… — Pema Chödrön Copy Share Image
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… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image
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… — Pema Chodron Copy Share Image