Pema Chodron
The Buddha taught that we're not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea. But when you let things be as they are, you will be a much happier, more balanced, compassionate person.
I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind to the person or situation that's right in front of you, and you miss so much.
Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong.
Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut down and unable to connect with others. Rejoicing generates good will.
According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.
As Buddhism moved from one culture to another, it always adapted.
As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn't exist in the countries of origin. It's just a sign of our culture.
There's something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one's self, you know?
If right now our emotional reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been cultivating that particular habit for a very long time.
You are the sky. Everything else - it’s just the weather.Collection: Uplifting
Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.Collection: Kindness
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.Collection: Life
The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.Collection: Change
Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.Collection: Curiosity
Loving kindness towards ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. It means we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.Collection: Kindness
Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you.Collection: Irritation
All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.Collection: Needs
When we cling to thoughts and memories, we are clinging to what cannot be grasped. When we touch these phantoms and let them go, we may discover a space, a break in the chatter, a glimpse of open sky. This is our birthright—the wisdom with which we were born, the vast unfolding display of primordial richness, primordial openness, primordial wisdom itself. When one thought has ended and another has not yet begun, we can rest in that space.Collection: Memories
It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.Collection: Buddhist
Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others.Collection: Essence
What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.Collection: Honesty
There's nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.Collection: Spiritual
Feel the feelings and drop the story.Collection: Feelings
Deep down in the human spirit, there is a reservoir of courage. It is always available, always waiting to be discovered.Collection: Waiting
We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. (10)Collection: Grief
Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.Collection: Relationship
When things fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it’s your fixed identity that’s crumbling. And as Chögyam Trungpa used to tell us, that’s cause for celebration.Collection: Fall
We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.Collection: Choices
Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice.Collection: Emotional
Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.Collection: Teacher
Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.Collection: Obstacles
Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.Collection: Running
When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenmentCollection: Letting Go
Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.Collection: Suffering
The essence of practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of revenge or self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines.Collection: Revenge
Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.Collection: Self
When people are hurting, what they really need is someone who is fully there for them - not someone who is condescending or officious. The only way for you to be there for them is by facing your fear or anger, whatever feelings cause you to shut down.Collection: Hurt
If you're invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.Collection: Planets
The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.Collection: Pain
Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.Collection: Giving Up
When Things Fall Apart” and I quote “Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it. Nothing ever sums itself up in the way that we like to dream about. The off-center, in-between state is an ideal situation, a situation in which we don't get caught and we can open our hearts and minds beyond limit. It's a very tender, nonaggressive, open-ended state of affairs.Collection: Dream
One way to practice staying present is to simply sit still for a while and listen. For one minute, listen to the sounds close to you. For one minute, listen to the sounds at a distance. Just listen attentively.Collection: Buddhist
If you aren't feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn't have anything to feed on.Collection: Fire
The truth is that good and bad coexist; sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other.Collection: Sweet
Lower your standards and relax as it is.Collection: Relax
Hold the sadness and pain of samsara [suffering, confusion] in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun [fundamental awake human nature]. Then the warrior [brave enough to look at & work with reality] can make a proper cup of tea.Collection: Pain
We cannot be present and run our story-line at the same time.Collection: Running
The wisdom, the strength, the confidence - the awakened heart and mind are always accessible -- here, now, always.Collection: Heart
Each of us has a "soft spot": the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.Collection: Appreciation
We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.Collection: Our World