Pema Chodron Quotes About Pain

Quotes about: Pain

• Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace-disapp ointment in all its many forms-and let it open me?' This is the trick.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Loss, Suffering

  Pema Chodron (2008). “The Pocket Pema Chodron”, p.30, Shambhala Publications

• It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhist, Pain, Attitude

• When we start out on a spiritual path we often have ideals we think we're supposed to live up to. We feel we're supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain - breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are heightens your awareness of exactly where you're stuck.

  Pema Chodron

  Spiritual, Pain, Helping Others

  "Good Medicine For This World". Discussion at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, www.lionsroar.com. January 1, 1999.

• Hold the sadness and pain of samsara [suffering, confusion] in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun [fundamental awake human nature]. Then the warrior [brave enough to look at & work with reality] can make a proper cup of tea.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Heart, Sadness

• Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel. Not to be ashamed of the love and grief that it arouses in us. Not to be afraid of pain. Someone needs to encourage us: that this soft spot in us could be awakened, and that to do this would change our lives.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Grief, Needs

• The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Ease, Way

  Pema Chodron (2009). “Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears”, p.28, Shambhala Publications

• Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Grief, Punishment

  Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.94, Shambhala Publications

• When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience our fear of pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Moving, Emotional

• The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something - usually ourselves.

  Pema Chodron

  Letting Go, Pain, Essence

  Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.133, Shambhala Publications

• When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of of the heart.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Heart, Armor

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.115, Shambhala Publications

• Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.

  Pema Chodron

  Change, Pain, Meditation

• If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.

  Pema Chodron

  Hurt, Pain, Heart

  Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.7, Shambhala Publications

• On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, companions in awakening from fear.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Moving, Warrior

• The next step is to learn to communicate with the people that you feel are causing your pain and misery- not to learn how to prove them wrong and yourself right but how to communicate from the heart.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Heart, People

  Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.164, Shambhala Publications

• It has a lot to do with developing patience, not with the check-out person so much, but with your own pain that arises, the rawness and the vulnerability, and sending some kind of warmth and love to that rawness and soreness. I think that's how we have to practice.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Thinking, Practice

• Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape - all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.

  Pema Chodron

  Running, Pain, Hate

  "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times". Book by Pema Chodron, September 26, 2000.

• One very powerful and effective way to work with this tendency to push away pain and hold on to pleasure is the practice of tonglen.  In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we  breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it, and owning it.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Powerful, Practice

• Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.

  Pema Chodron

  Freedom, Pain, Practice

• Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under our feet. For instance, if what we're feeling is rage, we usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to it. One is to blame others. Lay it all on somebody else; drive all blames into everyone else. The other alternative is to feel guilty about our rage and blame ourselves.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhist, Pain, Heart

• When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Betrayal, Sorrow

• To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is...

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Prejudice, Passionate

  "The Wisdom of No Escape". Book by Pema Chödrön, www.huffingtonpost.com. 1991.

• If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be eliminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation. This is the first step on the path.

  Pema Chodron

  Giving Up, Pain, Insecurity

• If seeing that other person's pain brings up your fear or anger or confusion (which often happens), just start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are stuck in the very same way.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, People, Confusion

• The sad part is that all we're trying to do is not feel that underlying uneasiness. The sadder part is that we proceed in such a way that the uneasiness only gets worse. The message here is that the only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, learn to stay with the itch and urge of shenpa, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule our lives, and the patterns that we consider unhelpful don't keep getting stronger as the days and months and years go by.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Years, Trying

  Pema Chodron (2009). “Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears”, p.28, Shambhala Publications

• Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.

  Pema Chodron

  Pain, Knowing, Important

  Pema Chodron (2001). “Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living”, p.178, Shambhala Publications

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin