Pema Chodron’s words have been a constant source of wisdom and comfort in my life, helping me navigate the ups and downs with greater ease and grace.
As someone who struggles with anxiety and self-doubt, I have found solace in Pema’s teachings on mindfulness and self-awareness, and her gentle reminders to be kind and compassionate to ourselves and others.
In this article, we’ll explore some of Pema Chodron’s most inspiring quotes, and the lessons we can learn from them. Whether you’re looking to cultivate more mindfulness in your life, overcome fear and self-doubt, or deepen your understanding of compassion and empathy, Pema’s quotes are sure to offer guidance and inspiration.
Join us as we dive into the wisdom of Pema Chodron Quotes and discover the transformative power of her teachings.
Who is Pema Chodron:
Pema Chödrön is an author, teacher, and Tibetan Buddhist nun. She is the director of the Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada, and a primary teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition.
Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York City in 1936. She committed to Buddhism in 1974 and became a Tibetan Buddhist nun in 1981. Chödrön is well-known for her teachings on mindfulness, compassion, and nonviolent communication practices. She is the author of several Buddhist publications, including “The Places That Scare You,” “When Things Fall Apart,” and “Don’t Bite the Hook”.
Also Read: Buddha’s Quotes On Spirituality, Peace, Life, Meditation
In addition to her work as a Buddhist teacher, Chödrön is active in social activity, notably in peace and the environment. She has earned various prizes and medals for her work, including the coveted National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama in 2012. Chodron has also won the 2002 Outstanding Teacher Award from the Religion Department at Naropa University.
Heart-Touching Pema Chodron Quotes
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.
Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
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.
Knowing pain is a very important ingredient in being there for another person.
Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
Running from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life.
The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, relief, misery, for joy.
We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.
Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not squeamish about taking a good look.
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.
To live fully is to be always in no man’s land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh.
Suffering usually relates to wanting things to be different from the way they are.
Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our hearts is the work of a lifetime.
This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.
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.
The future is completely open, and we are writing it a moment to moment.
Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.
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.
All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it through what you do.
Without giving up hope that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be-we will never relax with where we are or who we are
Being satisfied with what we already have is a magical golden key to being alive in a full, unrestricted, and inspired way.
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.
Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.
We can use our difficulties and problems to awaken our hearts.
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.
Things are as bad and as good as they seem. There’s no need to add anything extra.
We cannot be in the present moment and run our storylines at the same time!
Whatever happens in your life, joyful or painful, do not be swept away by reactivity. Be patience with yourself and don’t lose your sense of perspective.
The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.
The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face-to-face.
When we feel embarrassed or awkward, when pain presents itself to us in any form whatsoever, we run like crazy to try to become comfortable.
Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both.
Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.
All situations teach you, and often it’s the tough ones that teach you best.
Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.
When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose — you’re just there.
Usually, we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.
Look ahead to the rest of your life and ask yourself what you want it to add up to.
Every moment is unique, unknown, and completely fresh.
We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong.
Sometimes when things fall apart, well, that’s the big opportunity to change.
Don’t worry about achieving. Don’t worry about perfection. Just be there each moment as best you can.
Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy.
You must face annihilation over and over again to find what is indestructible in yourself.
Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.
Without giving up hope — that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.
We sow the seeds of our future hell or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now.
You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.
One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, and how we avoid being here just as we are.
Death and hopelessness provide proper motivation — proper motivation for living an insightful, compassionate life. But most of the time, warding off death is our biggest motivation.
Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, to try to protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves.
We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll become more awake in our lives.
Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others.
Meditation practice is not about later, when you get it all together and you’re this person you really respect.
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.
The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart.
Without giving up hope, we will never relax with where we are or who we are.
If you ask why we meditate, I would say it’s so we can become more flexible and tolerant of the present moment.
What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.
Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.
Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, listen and look at what’s happening.
How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go.
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.
What may appear to be an arrow or a sword we can actually experience as a flower.
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too was a gift.
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.
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.
Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical.
The point is to touch into the good heart that we already have and nurture it.
When we protect ourselves so we won’t feel pain, that protection becomes armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart.
Suffering usually relates to wanting things to be different from the way they are.
Just where you are – that’s the place to start.
We don’t need to add more depression, discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here.
All the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart.
Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all.
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.
Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.
