110+ Pema Chodron Quotes (Compassionate, Insightful And Transformative)

Pema Chödrön is an American Tibetan Buddhist nun and one of the foremost students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She is an ordained nun, acharya and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and a teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist Lineage. She is the author of many books and audiobooks on meditation, mindfulness, joy, fear, and other topics.

Top 10 Pema Chodron Quotes

1. Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
2. If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
3. Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical golden key to being alive in a full, unrestricted, and inspired way.
4. So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.
5. It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.
6. To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
7. Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patient with yourself and don't lose your sense of perspective.
8. Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.
9. Our true nature is like a precious jewel: although it may be temporarily buried in mud, it remains completely brilliant and unaffected. We simply have to uncover it.
10. Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.

Pema Chodron Short Quotes

• Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.
• You are the sky. Everything else - it’s just the weather.
• Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
• Anything we experience, no matter how challenging, can become an open pathway to awakening.
• There's nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.
• Use your life to wake you up.
• If you follow your heart, you're going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.
• As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . .
• One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is to feel that now is not enough.
• The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

Pema Chodron Famous Quotes And Sayings

Difficult things provoke all your irritations and bring your habitual patterns to the surface. And that becomes the moment of truth. You have the choice to launch into your lousy habitual patterns, or to stay with the rawness and discomfort of the situation and let it transform you. — Pema Chodron

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

Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life. — Pema Chodron

If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart. — Pema Chodron

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. — Pema Chodron

It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego. — Pema Chodron

Inner #‎ peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your #‎ emotions — Pema Chodron

What you do for yourself, any gesture of kindness, any gesture of gentleness, any gesture of honesty and clear seeing toward yourself, will affect how you experience your world. In fact, it will transform how you experience the world. What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself. — Pema Chodron

Learning how to be kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're discovering. We're discovering the universe. — Pema Chodron

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

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. — Pema Chodron

Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't share their beliefs - in effect, becoming fundamentalist. It's very dangerous - the finger of righteous indignation pointing at someone who is identified as bad or wrong. — Pema Chodron

People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That's not the idea at all. — Pema Chodron

We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice. — Pema Chodron

Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. From the very beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is true isn’t just a matter of honesty but also of compassion and respect for what we see. — Pema Chodron

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

Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path. — Pema Chodron

Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away. — Pema Chodron

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless. — Pema Chodron

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves. — Pema Chodron

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. — Pema Chodron

We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives. — Pema Chodron

If we knew that tonight we were going to go blind, we would take a long, last real look at every blade of grass, every cloud formation, every speck of dust, every rainbow, raindrop-everything. — Pema Chodron

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

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes. — Pema Chodron

By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength. — Pema Chodron

Each person's life is like a mandala - a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life ... everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening. — Pema Chodron

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately fill up the space. By waiting, we begin to connect with fundamental restlessness as well as fundamental spaciousness. -Pema Chodron, from "When Things Fall Apart — Pema Chodron

You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. — Pema Chodron

I can't overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be. — Pema Chodron

Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons. — Pema Chodron

A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn't mean we don't run and jump and dance about. It means there's no compulsiveness. We don't overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce. In short, we begin to stop causing harm. — Pema Chodron

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It's the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. — Pema Chodron

Being fully present isn’t something that happens once and then you have achieved it; it’s being awake to the ebb and flow and movement and creation of life, being alive to the process of life itself. — Pema Chodron

We don't set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people's hearts. — Pema Chodron

The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don't feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what's there. — Pema Chodron

Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time. — Pema Chodron

Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment. — Pema Chodron

You're the only one who knows when you're using things to protect yourself and keep your ego together and when you're opening and letting things fall apart, letting the world come as it is - working with it rather than struggling against it. You're the only one who knows. — Pema Chodron

Let your curiosity be greater than your fear. — Pema Chodron

There comes a time when the bubble of ego is popped and you can’t get the ground back for an extended period of time. Those times, when you absolutely cannot get it back together, are the most rich and powerful times in our lives. — Pema Chodron

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found. — Pema Chodron

In meditation and in our daily lives there are three qualities that we can nurture, cultivate, and bring out. We already possess these, but they can be ripened: precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go. — Pema Chodron

Treat yourself as your own beloved child. — Pema Chodron

Feel the wounded heart that's underneath the addiction, self-loathing, or anger. — Pema Chodron

Few of us are satisfied with retreating from the world and just working on ourselves. We want our training to manifest and to be of benefit. The bodhisattva-warrior, therefore, makes a vow to wake up not just for himself but for the welfare of all beings. — Pema Chodron

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace. — Pema Chodron

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

All the terrible things we do to ourselves and others from alcoholism to character assignation to abuse to murder come from one cause: the inability to stay present with an uncomfortable feeling in the body and seek short-term relief. — Pema Chodron

True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings. — Pema Chodron

Deep down in the human spirit, there is a reservoir of courage. It is always available, always waiting to be discovered. — Pema Chodron

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

Constantly apply cheerfulness, if for no other reason than because you are on this spiritual path. Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up. — Pema Chodron

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice. — Pema Chodron

No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear...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. (5) — Pema Chodron

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience and Infinite love is the only truth; everything else is an illusion. — Pema Chodron

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we night as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy. — Pema Chodron

Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings. — Pema Chodron

To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity. — Pema Chodron

Trying to change ourselves doesn't work in the long run because we're resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion. — Pema Chodron

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know. — Pema Chodron

This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we're arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. — Pema Chodron

As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. — Pema Chodron

The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be just to keep moving. — Pema Chodron

When you have made good friends with yourself, your situation will be more friendly too. — Pema Chodron

Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego. — Pema Chodron

Simply be present with your own shifting energies and with the unpredictabilit y of life as it unfolds. — Pema Chodron

When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. — Pema Chodron

It's a transformative experience to simply pause instead of immediately filling up space. — Pema Chodron

What if rather than being disheartened by the ambiguity, the uncertainty of life, we accepted it and relaxed into it? — Pema Chodron

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment. — Pema Chodron

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment. — Pema Chodron

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently. — Pema Chodron

One can appreciate & celebrate each moment — there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more! — Pema Chodron

The truth is that good and bad coexist; sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other. — Pema Chodron

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

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

This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go. — Pema Chodron

This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky - that's called liberation. — Pema Chodron

The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate. — Pema Chodron

What's encouraging about meditation is that, even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance. — Pema Chodron

The most important aspect of being on a spiritual path may be to just keep moving. — Pema Chodron

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

Everything that human beings feel, we feel. We can become extremely wise and sensitive to all of humanity and the whole universe simply by knowing ourselves, just as we are. — Pema Chodron

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

Nobody else can really begin to sort out for you what to accept and what to reject in terms of what wakes you up and what makes you fall asleep. No one else can really sort out for you what to accept - what opens up your world - and what to reject - what seems to keep you going round and round in some kind of repetitive misery. — Pema Chodron

Most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under us. — Pema Chodron

Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we're telling ourselves and question their validity? — Pema Chodron

When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. — Pema Chodron

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

Life Lessons by Pema Chodron

1. Pema Chodron teaches that life is full of suffering and that we can learn to accept this suffering as part of our journey. She encourages us to be present in the moment and to trust our own inner wisdom.
2. Pema Chodron emphasizes the importance of compassion and kindness towards ourselves and others, and encourages us to practice patience and non-judgment.
3. Pema Chodron teaches us to embrace uncertainty and to use it as an opportunity to grow and learn, allowing us to find joy and peace in life.