Quotes from Pema Chodron

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both...Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both.

Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.

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

It is a commitment to respect whatever life brings that we develop wholehearted determination to use discomfort as an opportunity for awakening, rather than trying to make it disappear.

Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?

Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life.

In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others.

According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.

We cannot be present and run our story-line at the same time.

The future is the result of what we do right now.

Wholeheartedly do what it takes to awaken your clear-seeing intelligence, but one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we live that way, we will benefit this earth.

Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future.

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.

Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.

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.

There's something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one's self, you know?

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

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.

Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience and Infinite love is the only truth; everything else is an illusion.

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

In truth, there is enormous space in which to live our everyday lives.

We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.