Quotes from Pema Chodron

Clouds come and go without harming the sky. Like that, thoughts come and go without harming our mind. Whether we like it or not, the thoughts keep coming. That's just how things are. We don't have to see it as a problem

Everything in your life - every moment, every struggle - is the path. Everything is an opportunity for awakening.

the satisfaction that we get is very short-lived.

every action has a result.

Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

We would practice as if a big snake had just landed in our lap.

But the Buddhist teachings are not only about removing the symptoms of suffering, they're about actually removing the cause, or the root, of suffering.

May bodhichitta, precious and sublime, Arise where it has not yet come to be; And where it has arisen may it not decline, But grow and flourish ever more and more. The

All over the world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever. Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, Am I going to add to the aggression in the world? Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?

This is called maitri—developing loving-kindness and an unconditional friendship with ourselves.

This starts with realizing that whatever occurs is neither the beginning nor the end. It is just the same kind of normal human experience that's been happening to everyday people from the beginning of time. Thoughts, emotions, moods, and memories come and they go, and basic nowness is always here.

In fact, we are giving up control altogether and letting concepts and ideals fall apart.

It's up to you how the law of karma all works out.

If today the instruction is to put everything on the right, one does that as impeccably as one can. When tomorrow the instruction is to put everything on the left, one does that with one's whole heart. The idea of one right way sort of dissolves into the mist.

even in the most difficult situations, we do our best to smile at fear, to smile at our righteous indignation, our cowardliness, our avoidance of vulnerability.

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.

Sit quietly for a few minutes and become mindful of your breath as it goes in and out. Then contemplate what you do when you're unhappy or dissatisfied and want to feel better. Even make a list if you want to. Then ask yourself: Does it work? Has it ever worked? Does it soothe the pain? Does it escalate the pain? If you're really honest, you'll come up with some pretty interesting observations.

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.

Meditation helps you to meet your edge; it's where you actually come up against it and you start to lose it.

That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything—every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—is always changing, moment to moment.

We can begin to relate with what's underneath all the bubbles and burps and farts, all the stuff that comes out and expresses itself as uptight, controlling, manipulative behavior, or whatever it is.

you'll eventually come to feel like you're in a battle with reality and reality is always winning.

The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go. We can learn to meet whatever arises with curiosity and not make it such a big deal. Instead of struggling against the force of confusion, we could meet it and relax.

Shantideva said that since all sentient beings suffer from strong, conflicting emotions, and all sentient beings get what they don't want and can't hold on to what they do want, and all sentient beings have physical distress, why am I making such a big deal about just me? Since we're all in this together, why am I making such a big deal about myself?