Quotes About Vulnerability

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.

soften, to connect with your heart and engender a basic attitude of generosity and compassion toward yourself, the archetypal coward.

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

This world—absolutely pure As is. Behind the fear, Vulnerability. Behind that, Sadness, then compassion And behind that the vast sky.

warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not-knowing is part of the adventure. It's also what makes us afraid.

With great kindness and love, out of your own experience of what's possible, you give them the wisdom that somebody else probably gave you the day before when you were miserable. You encourage them not to buy into their self-pity but to realize that it's an opportunity to grow, and that everybody goes through this experience. In other words, the sangha are people committed to helping one another to take off their armor, by not encouraging their weakness

If we were to come up with one word about each of the troublemakers in our lives, we would find ourselves with a list of descriptions of our own rejected qualities.

We can know the nature of dislike, shame, and embarrassment and not believe there's something wrong with that. We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there. It's better to take a straight look at all our hopes and fears.

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.

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.

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

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

Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear. When I was first married, my husband said I was one of the bravest people he knew. When I asked him why, he said because I was a complete coward but went ahead and did things anyhow.

Vivir es una forma de no estar seguro, de no saber lo que vendrá después ni en qué forma. En el momento en que sepamos cómo, empezaremos a morir un poco. Los artistas nunca sabemos nada del todo. Suponemos. Podemos estar equivocados, pero aun así nos lanzamos de un salto a la oscuridad una y otra vez. AGNES DE MILLE

Pero bajo la dureza de esta armadura, se oculta la terneza de una genuina tristeza

El miedo es una reacción natural al acercarse a la verdad.

If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation.

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.

When you hold a fixed idea of yourself, you have to leave out all the parts that you find boring, embarrassing, difficult, or sad. You leave out the emotions you don't want to feel. And then when you do that, when you leave out all those parts, when those parts are not acceptable, then it eats away at you underneath. These unacknowledged parts are like a hum in the background that's eating away at you, and you have to find an escape to get away from that.

Al principio de nuestro matrimonio, mi esposo me dijo que yo era una de las personas más valientes que conocía. Cuando le pregunté por qué, me dijo que porque era una cobarde total, pero a pesar de todo seguía adelante y hacía las cosas.

THE OPPOSITE OF samsara is when all the walls fall down, when the cocoon completely disappears and we are totally open to whatever may happen, with no withdrawing, no centralizing into ourselves. That is what we aspire to, the warrior's journey.

Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.