Quotes by Pema Chodron

About Pema Chodron:

Pema Chödrön is a notable American figure in Tibetan Buddhism. A disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she is an ordained nun, author, and acharya, senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage Trungpa founded.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In sitting meditation, our practice is to watch our thoughts arise, label them "thinking", and return to the breath.

Pema Chodron

It's helpful to always remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing withwhatever arises, without picking and choosing.

Pema Chodron

Sitting meditation begins with good posture.

Pema Chodron

Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.

Pema Chodron

Meditation practice is how we discover basic goodness and learn to cultivate bodhichitta. With this view, practice, and activity, even the most mundane situation becomes a vehicle for awakening.

Pema Chodron

An interesting practice that combines mindfulness and refraining is just to notice your physical movements when you feel uncomfortable.

Pema Chodron

For an aspiring bodhisattva, the essential practice is to cultivate maitri, or loving-kindness.

Pema Chodron

We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in, let it touch our hearts, and turn it into compassion.

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

WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealo...

Pema Chodron

Making good use of our limited time - the limited time from birth to death, as well as our limited time each day - is the key to developing inner steadiness and calm.

Pema Chodron

In order to work with difficult outer circumstances, we need to gather our inner strength. If even ten or twenty minutes of meditation a day helps us to do this, let's go for it!

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

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

If your mind is expansive and unfettered, you will find yourself in a more accommodating world, a place that's endlessly interesting and alive. That quality isn't inherent in the place but in your state of mind.

Pema Chodron

Words themselves are neutral. It's the charge we add to them that matters

Pema Chodron

WHEN we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that because of our noble intentions everything will be okay.

Pema Chodron

WE can learn to rejoice in even the smallest blessings our life holds. It is easy to miss our own good fortune; often happiness comes in ways we don’t even notice.

Pema Chodron

We can learn to act and think in ways that sow seeds of our future well-being, gradually becoming more aware of what causes happiness as well as what causes distress.

Pema Chodron

The calligraphy reads, “Pointing directly at your own heart, you find Buddha.” Listening to talks about the dharma, or the teachings of Buddha, or practicing meditation is nothing other than studying ourselves.

Pema Chodron

Author Bio

  • NamePema Chodron
  • DescriptionAmerican philosopher
  • BornJuly 14, 1936
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Philosopher