Pema Quotes & Sayings

When we hear about compassion, it naturally brings up working with others, caring for others. The reason we're often not there for others - whether for our child or our mother or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us - is that we're not there for ourselves. There are whole parts of ourselves that are so unwanted that whenever they begin to come up we run away. — Pema Chodron

The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment. — Pema Chodron

Feel the feelings and drop the story. — Pema Chodron

Every moment is incredibly unique and fresh, and when we drop into the moment, as meditation allows us to do, we learn how to truly taste this tender and mysterious life that we share together. — Pema Chodron

As we practice, we begin to know the difference between our fantasy and reality. — Pema Chodron

When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart. — Pema Chodron

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. — Pema Chodron

Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum. We don't interrupt our patterns even slightly. With practice, however, we learn to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with the desire for revenge. Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. — Pema Chodron

It's as if you were in a spaceship going to the moon, and you looked back at this tiny planet Earth and realized that things were vaster than any mind could conceive and you just couldn't handle it, so you started worrying about what you were going to have for lunch. There you are in outer space with this sense of the world being so vast, and then you bring it all down into this very tiny world of worrying about what's for lunch ... We do this all the time. — Pema Chodron

This is a standard meditation instruction that you can embody in the entirety of your life: do not act out and do not repress. See what happens if you don't do either of those things. — Pema Chodron

Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. — Pema Chodron

Honestly, that is the best advice for life: no note cards. — Pema Chodron

It is possible to move through the drama of our lives without believing so earnestly in the character that we play. That we take ourselves so seriously, that we are so absurdly important in our own minds, is a problem for us. We feel justified in being annoyed with everything. We feel justified in denigrating ourselves or in feeling that we are more clever than other people. Self-importance hurts us, limiting us to the narrow world of our likes and dislikes. We end up bored to death with ourselves and our world. We end up never satisfied. — Pema Chodron

Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals. - MAHATMA GANDHI — Pema Chodron

When you connect with your own suffering, reflect that countless beings at this very moment are feeling exactly what you feel. Their story line is different, but the feeling of pain is the same. When — Pema Chodron

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment. — Pema Chodron

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 well as fundamental spaciousness.
-Pema Chodron, from When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chodron

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It's such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we're doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We're letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint. — Pema Chodron

Constantly apply cheerfulness, if for no other reason than because you are on this spiritual path. Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up. — Pema Chodron

Soften, to connect with your heart and engender a basic attitude of generosity and compassion toward yourself, the archetypal coward. — Pema Chodron

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) — Pema Chodron

Once we have the fixed idea "this is me," then we see everything as a threat or a promise - or something we couldn't care less about. — Pema Chodron

Each moment is an opportunity to make a fresh start. — Pema Chodron

Be grateful to everyone is about making peace with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected ... If we were to make a list of people we don't like - people we find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contempt - we would discover much about those aspects of ourselves that we can't face ... other people trigger the karma that we haven't worked out. — Pema Chodron

In his talk, Suzuki Roshi says that meditation and the whole process of finding your own true nature is one continuous mistake, and that rather than that being a reason for depression or discouragement, it's actually the motivation. — Pema Chodron

From this point of view, the only time we ever know what's really going on is when the rug's been pulled out and we can't find anywhere to land. We use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep. — Pema Chodron

People might think that my queen should be highly educated, beautiful and the best of the best. Jetsun Pema is a kind-hearted girl who is very supportive and whom I can trust. I cannot say how she might appear to the people, but to me, she is the one. — Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck

Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape
all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain. — 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. — Pema Chodron

The difference between what is neurosis and what is wisdom is very hard to perceive, because somehow the energy underlying both of them is the same. — Pema Chodron

If there's any possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. Now is the time. — Pema Chodron

To live is to be willing to die over and over again. — Pema Chodron

we have the incredible fortune of living alongside wise men and women from many traditions who give us these kinds of messages over and over again: "Look at your mind. Be curious. Welcome groundlessness. Lighten up and relax. Offer chaos a cup of tea. Let go of 'us and them.' Don't turn away. Everything you do and think affects everyone else on the planet. Let the pain of the world touch you and cause your compassion to blossom. And never give up on yourself." I — Pema Chodron

Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what's happening. — Pema Chodron

Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality. — Pema Chodron

Instead of making others right or wrong, or bottling up right and wrong in ourselves, there's a middle way, a very powerful middle way ... Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not know what to say, not make that person wrong or right? Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are? It is powerful to practice this way ... true communication can happen only in that open space. — Pema Chodron

It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer. — Pema Chodron

The idea is to develop sympathy for your own confusion. — Pema Chodron

The natural quality of mind is clear, awake, alert, and knowing. Free from fixation. By training in being present, we come to know the nature of our mind. So the more you train in being present - being right here - the more you begin to feel like your mind is sharpening up. The mind that can come back to the present is clearer and more refreshed, and it can better weather all the ambiguities, pains, and paradoxes of life. — Pema Chodron

Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings. — Pema Chodron

If we emphasized only precision, our meditation might become quite harsh and militant. ( ... ). One thing that is very helpful is to cultivate an overall sense of relaxation while you are doing the meditation. — Pema Chodron

Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives. — Pema Chodron

When you open the door and invite in all sentient beings as your guests, you have to drop your agenda. — Pema Chodron

Simply be present with your own shifting energies and with the unpredictabilit y of life as it unfolds. — Pema Chodron

When one of the emperors of China asked Bodhidharma (the Zen master who brought Zen from India to China) what enlightenment was, his answer was, "Lots of space, nothing holy." Meditation is nothing holy. Therefore there's nothing that you think or feel that somehow gets put in the category of "sin." There's nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of "bad." There's nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of "wrong." It's all good juicy stuff - the manure of waking up, the manure of achieving enlightenment, the art of living in the present moment. — Pema Chodron

You're never going to get your act together, fully, completely. — Pema Chodron

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. — Pema Chodron

THE way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face-to-face. — Pema Chodron

Each day, we're given many opportunities to open up or shut down. The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can't handle whatever is happening. It's too much. It's gone too far. We feel bad about ourselves. There's no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good. No matter how hard we try, it just won't work. Basically, life has just nailed us. — Pema Chodron

Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggressionat our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think weought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other peoplethink we want to be or ought to be. We give it up and just look directlywith compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat andheartache, no punishment. — Pema Chodron

We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people's wrongness. — Pema Chodron

All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do. — Pema Chodron

The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete acceptance and openness to all situations and emotions, and to all people, experiencing everything totally without mental reservations and blockages, so that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself. — Pema Chodron

The mind is always seeking zones of safety, and these zones of safety are continually falling apart. Then we scramble to get another zone of safety back together again. We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That's samsara. The — Pema Chodron

The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. — Pema Chodron

If the object of meditation were something concrete, something solid and graspable - an image or a statue or a dot on the floor or a candle - it would be much more of a concentration exercise. But the breath is very elusive; even if you wanted to give it one hundred percent attention, it would be difficult because it is so ephemeral, so light, so airy and spacious. As the object of meditation, it brings a sense of softness and gentleness. — Pema Chodron

A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. — Pema Chodron

The truth is that good and bad coexist; sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other. — Pema Chodron

We come to realize that other people's welfare is just as important as our own. In helping them, we help ourselves. In helping ourselves, we help the world. — Pema Chodron

One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. — Pema Chodron

However, in this technique, because your eyes are open and because the gaze in not a tight gaze and because the whole emphasis of the practice is one of openess, even though you're mindful of the out-breath, you're not shutting out all other things that are going on. — Pema Chodron

The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we study, that's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest. — Pema Chodron

We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be. — Pema Chodron

My moods are continuously shifting like the weather. — Pema Chodron

Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us. — Pema Chodron

When we feel left out, inadequate, or lonely, can we take a warrior's perspective and contact bodhichitta? — Pema Chodron

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 relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride. — Pema Chodron

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 that we're bad and hoping that we're good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds - never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. — Pema Chodron

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

Even though there are so many teachings, so many meditations, so many instructions, the basic point of it all is just to learn to be extremely honest and also wholehearted about what exists in your mind - thoughts, emotions bodily sensations, the whole thing that adds up to what we call "me" or "I". — Pema Chodron

All the wars, all the hatred, all the ignorance in the world come out of being so invested in our opinions. — Pema Chodron

The opposite of patience is aggression - the desire to jump and move, to push against our lives, to try to fill up space. — Pema Chodron

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. — Pema Chodron

Once you create a self-justifying storyline, your emotional entrapment within it quadruples. — Pema Chodron

As Buddhists, we might say, "My ego causes me so many problems." Then we might think, "Well, then, we're supposed to get rid of it, right? Then there'd be no problem." On the contrary, the idea isn't to get rid of ego but actually to begin to take an interest in ourselves, to investigate and be inquisitive about ourselves. — Pema Chodron

Making good use of our limited time - the limited time from birth to death, as well as our limited time each day - is the key to developing inner steadiness and calm. — Pema Chodron

In order to work with difficult outer circumstances, we need to gather our inner strength. If even ten or twenty minutes of meditation a day helps us to do this, let's go for it! — Pema Chodron

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves. — Pema Chodron

The third kind of loneliness is avoiding unnecesssary activities. When we're lonely in a "hot" way, we look for something to save us; we look for a way out. We get this queasy feeling that we call loneliness, and our minds just go wild trying to come up with companions to save us from despair. That's called unnecessary activity. It's a way of keeping ourselves busy so we don't have to feel any pain. It could take the form of obsessively daydreaming of true romance, or turning a tidbit of gossip into the six o'clock news, or even going off by ourselves into the wilderness. The point is that in all these activities, we are seeking companionship in our usual, habitual way, using our same old repetitive ways of distancing ourselves from the demon loneliness. Could we just settle down and have some — Pema Chodron

The Buddhist explanation is that we feel this uneasiness because we're always trying to get ground under our feet and it never quite works. We're always looking for a permanent reference point, and it doesn't exist. Everything is impermanent. Everything is always changing - fluid, unfixed, and open. Nothing is pin-down-able the way we'd like it to be. This is not actually bad news, but we all seem to be programmed for denial. We have absolutely no tolerance for uncertainty. It seems that insecurity — Pema Chodron

Even when dreaming, if the sentient beings who dwell in the three lower realms are witnessed, then at that moment one should pray to sever the continuity of their negativity.
- Gathering of Precious Qualities — Pema Lungtok Gyatso

Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic goodness of what we have and who we are, and of realizing that any wisdom that exists, exists in what we already have. — Pema Chodron

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further. — Pema Chodron

The meditation technique itself cultivate precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go - qualities that are innate within us. — Pema Chodron

The seasons come and go, summer follows spring and fall follows summer and winter follows fall, and human beings are born and mature, have their middle age, begin to grow older and die, and everything has its cycles. Day follows night, night follows day. It is good to be part of all of this.' When you begin to have that kind of trust in basic creativity and directness and fullness, in the alive quality of yourself and your world, then you can begin to understand renunciation. — Pema Chodron

The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be to just keep moving. — Pema Chodron

Share the wealth. Be generous with your joy. Give away what you most want. Be generous with your insights and delights. — Pema Chodron

You must learn to sit with the restless, painful energy and not let the momentum pull you under and cause you to do the same thing over and over that's ruining your life and the lives of those around you. — Pema Chodron

Affirmations are like screaming that you're okay in order to overcome this whisper that you're not ... maybe you're not okay. Well, no big deal. None of us is okay and all of us are fine. — Pema Chodron

One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough. — Pema Chodron

When we sit down to meditate, we connect with something unconditional - a state of mind, a basic environment that does not grasp or reject anything. Meditation is probably the only activity that doesn't add anything to the picture. Everything is allowed to come and go without further embellishment. Meditation is a totally nonviolent, non aggressive occupation. Not filling the space, allowing for the possibility of connecting with unconditional openness - this provides the basis for real change. — Pema Chodron

We awaken this bodhichitta, this tenderness for life, when we can no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. In the words of the sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, "You take it all in. You let the pain of the world touch your heart and you turn it into compassion." It is said that in difficult times, it is only bodhichitta that heals. — Pema Chodron

Patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself. — Pema Chodron

What I have realized through practicing is that practice isn't about beng the best horse or the good horse or the poor horse or the worst horse. — Pema Chodron

Tonglen dissolves your solid sense of "I'm the wise person, I'm going to help this poor, unfortunate loser." — Pema Chodron

We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid. — Pema Chodron

Just pausing for two to three breaths is a perfect way to stay present. This is a good use of our life. Indeed, it is an excellent, joyful use of our life. Instead of getting better and better at avoiding, we can learn to accept the present moment as if we had invited it, and work with it instead of against it, making it our ally rather than our enemy. — Pema Chodron

We try to resist it by making things that will last - forever, we say - things that we don't have to wash, things that we don't have to iron. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. — Pema Chodron

Sometimes we find that we like our thoughts so much that we don't want to let them go. — Pema Chodron

The reason we're often not there for others - whether for our child or our mother or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us - is that we're not there for ourselves. — Pema Chodron