Quotes About Acceptance

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.

The point is that we can dissolve the sense of dualism between us and them, between this and that, between here and there, by moving toward what we find difficult and wish to push away.

It describes an experience of complete hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is the beginning of the beginning. Without giving up hope—that there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.

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.

We can't control what's going to happen but we can grow in awareness of what is happening.

To think that we can finally get it all together is unrealistic. To seek for some lasting security is futile.

To stay with that shakiness—to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic—this is the spiritual path.

THE DHARMA—the Buddha's teaching—is about letting go of the story line and opening to what is: to the people in our life, to the situations we're in, to our thoughts, to our emotions. We have a certain life, and whatever life we're in is a vehicle for waking up.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn't mean that something is wrong. What a relief. Finally somebody told the truth.

We can get used to the fleeting quality of life in a natural, gentle, even joyful way, by watching the seasons change, watching day turning to night, watching children grow up, watching sand castles dissolve back into the sea. But if we don't find some way to make friends with groundlessness and the ever-changing energy of life, then we'll always be struggling to find stability in a shifting world.

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.

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.

Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along

With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn.

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.

We can be with what's happening and not dissociate. 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.

Everything is equally precious and whole and good, and everyone is equally precious and whole and good.

Compassion involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

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.

It is unconditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to unconditional compassion for others.

Impermanence can teach you a lot about how to cheer up.