Everybody loves something, even if it's only tortillas. Pema Chodron More Quotes by Pema Chodron More Quotes From Pema Chodron A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. Pema Chodron warrior next accepting The teacher will never give up on the student no matter how mixed up he or she might be Pema Chodron giving-up might teacher We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now. Pema Chodron hell mind way The happiness we seek cannot be found through grasping, trying to hold on to things. It cannot be found through getting serious and uptight about wanting things to go in the direction we think will bring happiness. We are always taking hold of the wrong end of the stick. The point is that the happiness we seek is already here and it will be found through relaxation and letting go rather than through struggle. Pema Chodron struggle letting-go happiness If seeing that other person's pain brings up your fear or anger or confusion (which often happens), just start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are stuck in the very same way. Pema Chodron pain confusion people In truth, there is enormous space in which to live our everyday lives. Pema Chodron everyday-life everyday space 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. Pema Chodron down-and our-world feel-good You see, there really is no separation between you and everyone else. Pema Chodron separation 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. Pema Chodron emotional revenge fall Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape. Pema Chodron vivid natural moving None of us is ever OK, but we all get through everything just fine. Pema Chodron fine Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what is going on, but that there is something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world. Pema Chodron our-world missing feelings Take three conscious breaths. Just pause. Let it be a contrast to being all caught up. Let it be like popping a bubble. Let it be just a moment in time, and then go on. Maybe you are on your way to whatever you need to do for the day. You are in your car, or on the bus, or standing in line. But you can still create that gap by taking three conscious breaths and being right there with the immediacy of your experience, right there with whatever you are seeing, with whatever you are doing, with whatever you are feeling. Pema Chodron car three feelings This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain and to cling to pleasure. Pema Chodron tendencies pleasure pain We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. Pema Chodron schemes natural forget In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others. Pema Chodron burden life-is thinking Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear? Pema Chodron relate growing-up grows At least once a year, I imagine that I am about to die. Looking back as truthfully as I can at my entire life, I give full attention to the things I wish hadn’t occurred. Recognizing these mistakes honestly but without self-recrimination, I try to rejoice in the innate wisdom that allows me to see so bravely, and I feel compassion for how I so frequently messed up. Then I can go forward. The future is wide open, and what I do with it is up to me. Pema Chodron compassion self mistake We see how beautiful and wonderful and amazing things are, and we see how caught up we are. It isn’t that one is the bad part and one is the good part, but that it’s a kind of interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess of stuff. When it’s all mixed up together, it’s us: humanness. Pema Chodron together beautiful interesting Being fully present isn’t something that happens once and then you have achieved it; it’s being awake to the ebb and flow and movement and creation of life, being alive to the process of life itself. Pema Chodron ebb-and-flow movement alive
