Quotes About Resilience

Taking refuge is the way that we begin cultivating the openness and the goodheartedness that allow us to be less and less dependent.

No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear. We are very rarely told to move closer, to just be there, to become familiar with fear. I once asked the Zen master Kobun Chino Roshi how he related with fear, and he said, "I agree. I agree." But the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away.

Everything that occurs is not only usable and workable but is actually the path itself. We can use everything that happens to us as the means for waking up. We can use everything that occurs—whether it's our conflicting emotions and thoughts or our seemingly outer situation—to show us where we are asleep and how we can wake up completely, utterly, without reservations.

Só encontraremos aquilo que é indestrutível em nós à medida que nos expusermos cada vez mais à destruição

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing.

Disappointment, embarrassment, and all the places where we cannot feel good are a sort of death... It's actually a sign of health that when we meet the place we are about to die, we feel fear and trembling.

Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape. During

The mind is always seeking zones of safety, and these zones of safety are continually falling apart.

Booker T. Washington was right when he said, "Let no man pull you so low as to make you hate him.

You are never going to get it all together, you're never going to get your act together, fully, completely. You're never going to get all the little loose ends tied up.

Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to the bare bones, no matter what's going on.

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. 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.

The Buddhist explanation

The interesting thing is that, as we open more and more, it's the big ones that immediately wake us up and the little things that catch us off guard. However, no matter what the size, color, or shape is, the point is still to lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it.

When things are shaky and nothing is working, we might realize that we are on the verge of something. We might realize that this is a very vulnerable and tender place, and that tenderness can go either way. We can shut down and feel resentful or we can touch in on that throbbing quality. There is definitely something tender and throbbing about groundlessness.

Pema Chödrön

We also change like the weather. We ebb and flow like the tides, we wax and wane like the moon. We fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid. And so we suffer.

We see ourselves in every episode; we realize that it's possible to keep going and never give up. We feel devotion toward the lineage of people who have worked so hard to make it easier for us.

Then we refuse to laugh or let go, because we might discover—who knows what?

Whatever you do, don't try to make those feelings go away." His advice went on: "Anything you can learn about working with your sense of discouragement or your sense of fear or your sense of bewilderment or your sense of feeling inferior or your sense of resentment—anything you can do to work with those things—do it, please, because it will be such an inspiration to other people.

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.

So when I would start to become depressed, I would remember, "Now wait a minute. Maybe I just have to figure out how to rouse myself genuinely, because there are a lot of people suffering like this, and if I can do it, they can do it.

to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It's going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate. You can leave your marriage, you can quit your job, you can only go where people are going to praise you, you can manipulate your world until you're blue in the face to try to make it always smooth, but the same old demons will always come up until finally you have learned your lesson, the lesson they came to teach you.

The experience of a sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness.