Pema Chodron Quotes About Suffering

Quotes about: Suffering

• The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.

  Pema Chodron

  Change, Encouraging, Spiritual

• 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

• It isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer.

  Pema Chodron

  Spiritual, Perspective, Suffering

  "On Faith & Reason" with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. August 4, 2006.

• 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

• So many of us start along the spiritual path because we are suffering. But you must realize that for real healing to occur, there must first be deep compassion for yourself, especially the parts of yourself you dislike or consider ugly.

  Pema Chodron

  Spiritual, Real, Healing

• It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.

  Pema Chodron

  Believe, Suffering, Causes

• We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticizing or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.

  Pema Chodron

  Mistake, Self, Suffering

• We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering, we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us - a prison that restricts us to our personal hopes and fears, and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet, when we don't close off, when we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship with all beings.

  Pema Chodron

  Truth, Fear, Heart

• Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we're holding back.

  Pema Chodron

  Disappointment, Buddhism, Irritation

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.16, 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

• As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don't deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhist, Mind, Suffering

  "When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times". Book by Pema Chodron, December 24, 1996.

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

  Pema Chodron

  Fall, Healing, Buddhism

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

• Resisting what is happening is a major cause of suffering.

  Pema Chodron

  Suffering, Causes, Happenings

• When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into it’s dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment

  Pema Chodron

  Letting Go, Struggle, Suffering

  Pema Chodron (2012). “Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change”, p.6, Shambhala Publications

• We spend all our energy and waste our lives trying to re-create these zones of safety, which are always falling apart. That's the essence of samsara - the cycle of suffering that comes from continuing to seek happiness in all the wrong places.

  Pema Chodron

  Fall, Essence, Safety

  Pema Chodron (2003). “Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion”, p.24, Shambhala Publications

• Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.

  Pema Chodron

  Struggle, Buddhism, Reality

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.78, Shambhala Publications

• Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

  Pema Chodron

  Work, Buddhism, Suffering

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.78, Shambhala Publications

• In tonglen practice, when we see or feel suffering, we  breathe in with the notion of completely feeling it, accepting it, and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating compassion, lovingkindness, freshness - anything that encourages relaxation and openness.  So you're training in softening, rather than tightening, your heart. In this practice, it's not uncommon to find yourself blocked, because you come face to face with your own fear, resistance, or whatever your personal "stuckness" happens to be at that moment.

  Pema Chodron

  Heart, Compassion, Practice

• Come back to square one, just the minimum bare bones. Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time-that is the basic message.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhism, Squares, Suffering

• 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 first noble truth of the Buddha is that when we feel suffering, it doesn’t mean that something is wrong. What a relief.

  Pema Chodron

  Mean, Suffering, Relief

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.52, Shambhala Publications

• Suffering begins to dissolve when we can question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.

  Pema Chodron

  Buddhism, Acceptance, Suffering

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.50, Shambhala Publications

• 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

• We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can't relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.

  Pema Chodron

  Choices, Suffering, Relax

  Pema Chodron (2012). “Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change”, p.14, Shambhala Publications

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin