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Quotes from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times — Pema Chödrön

born 1936 Canada

← All quotes by Pema Chödrön

15 quotes

We all need to be reminded and encouraged to relax with whatever arises and bring whatever we encounter to the path.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Impermanence becomes vivid in the present moment; so do compassion and wonder and courage. And so does fear.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Life is a good teacher and a good friend. Things are always in transition, if we could only realize it.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

In fact, anyone who stands on the edge of the unknown, fully in the present without reference point, experiences groundlessness.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Through meditation, we’re able to see clearly what’s going on with our thoughts and emotions, and we can also let them go.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell. In fact, that way of looking at things is what keeps us miserable.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, “Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?”

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Emptiness is not what we thought. Neither is mindfulness or fear. Compassion—not what we thought. Love. Buddha nature. Courage.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Thinking that we can find some lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer greatly.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

The trick is to keep exploring and not bail out, even when we find out that something is not what we thought... Nothing is what we thought.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

The very first noble truth of the Buddha points out that suffering is inevitable for human beings as long as we believe that things last — that they don’t disintegrate, that they can be counted on to satisfy our hunger for security.

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (1997)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Pema Chödrön (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.