Quotes from Pema Chodron

Life is like stepping into a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. —SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI A

We can connect with that openness at any time. For instance, right now, for three seconds, just stop reading and pause. If

When something hurts in life, we don't usually think of it as our path or as the source of wisdom. In fact, we think that the reason we're on the path is to get rid of this painful feeling.

Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame.

In reality, when you feel depressed, lonely, betrayed, or any unwanted feelings, this is an important moment on the spiritual path. This is when real transformation can take place.

This has been going on through the ages. They criticize the silent ones. They criticize the talkative ones. They criticize the moderate ones. There is no one in the world that escapes criticism. There never was and never will be, nor is there now, the wholly criticized or the wholly approved. Shakyamuni Buddha said that more than twenty-five hundred years ago, but it seems that some things never change.

As Leonard Cohen once said about the benefits of many years of meditation, "The less there was of me, the happier I got.

According to these teachings, what we experience in the present is the result of the seeds we ve sown for hundreds of years, over the course of many lifetimes.

But honesty without kindness makes us feel grim and mean

when we harm another, we are harming ourselves.

the best way to serve ourselves is to love and care for others. These are powerful tools for dissolving the barriers that perpetuate the suffering of all beings.

Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear.

We seem doomed to suffer simply because we have a deep-seated fear of how things really are.

If we find ourselves unworkable and give up on ourselves, then we'll find others unworkable and give up on them.

Rudolph Bahro. He writes, "When an old culture is dying, the new culture is created by those people who are not afraid to be insecure.

Buddha nature, cleverly disguised as fear, kicks our ass into being receptive.

To make things as easy as possible to under stand, we can summarize the four boundless qualities in the single phrase "a kind heart." Just train yourself to have a kind heart always and in all situations. —PATRUL RINPOCHE

Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know. When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell.

Meditation practice is how we discover basic goodness and learn to cultivate bodhichitta. With this view, practice, and activity, even the most mundane situation becomes a vehicle for awakening.

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. Right now—in the very instant of groundlessness—is the seed of taking care of those who need our care and of discovering our goodness.

In any case, the point is not to try to get rid of thoughts, but rather to see their true nature. Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really they are like dream images. They are like an illusion—not really all that solid. They are, as we say, just thinking.

Sabemos que todo es impermanente, que todo acaba agotándose. Aunque aceptemos esta verdad con el intelecto, emocionalmente nos produce una profunda aversión. Deseamos que todo sea permanente y esperamos que así sea. Nuestra tendencia natural es buscar seguridad, creer que podemos encontrarla.

Trying to get lasting security teaches us a lot, because if we never try to do it, we never notice that it can't be done. Turning our minds toward the dharma speeds up the process of discovery. At every turn we realize once again that it's completely hopeless—we can't get any ground under our feet. The difference between theism