If right now our emotional reaction to seeing a certain person or hearing certain news is to fly into a rage or to get despondent or something equally extreme, it's because we have been cultivating that particular habit for a very long time.
Pema Chodron
Related Most of us think we're too busy or too important to rest for a day. CRAIG GROESCHEL Do I have the courage of being a ruthless man to myself with the complete knowledge on my manner or ... FEREIDOON YAZDI To be, or not to be, that is the question. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful. EVANS G. VALENS To be or not to be. That's not really a question. JEAN-LUC GODARD The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surpr... C.S. LEWIS If we're reading a first-person account, we know that each and every one of us, myself included,... ERROL MORRIS Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said: I am not commanding you, but I ... NICHOLAS SPARKS To kill a mockingbird. If you haven't read it, I think you should because it is very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I will never forget the vision of Jamie walking towards me. 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JUSTIN BIEBER There are just some kind of men who-who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learn... HARPER LEE The role of the
Christian is to let other people know what Jesus has done, not to
think of themselve... LEWIS N. ROE Naturalistic atheism debunks itself. It
has no power to explain even some
of the most basic principl... LEWIS N. ROE It's important to understand that if
someone calls themselves a Christian, it does not automatically... LEWIS N. ROE A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung... PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE Certain songs like 'Enjoy the Silence' - to me, it always fits anywhere. There's somethi... DAVE GAHAN If you have to change the law to get more money, that's a tax increase, and Americans for Tax Re... GROVER NORQUIST Technology, the Law of Equation and the English Language all have one shortfall, that even school te... APURVA GAGLANI A lot of things should have been, Zigmund, but they aren’t. Are you going to be miserable about th... MELIKA DANNESE LUX I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things, but I don't view those... TAO LIN People don't understand that that's really what it is. They're looking for a magic phone... TODD BARRY I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who ... NEIL GAIMAN I was emotional. I wanted to be taken seriously. I was pretty emo. I was reciting Shakespeare monolo... CONSTANCE WU The debate is simple. We have one topic and students pick sides, if they are for or against it. Each... DANIEL NOIA The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into... AL GORE At a certain point I wondered what would happen if I guided a person into that breathing with or wit... LEONARD ORR There is that idea of seeming crazy when you're seeing spirits or you're seeing dead people,... DEBORAH MAILMAN I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthe... STEPHEN BAYLEY 2. Overcommitment and time pressure are the greatest destroyers of marriages. It takes time to devel... JAMES C. DOBSON If you know somebody is going to be awfully annoyed by something you write, that's obviously ver... A. N. WILSON I think a lot of people think I'm either unintelligent because I'm a very happy person and I... DOVE CAMERON It doesn't matter if it's aliens or emotional weapons or whatever - it's still a real st... MARGARET STOHL For myself, for a long time... maybe I felt inauthentic or something, I felt like my voice wasn't wo... TOM HIDDLESTON If you take something out of the freezer, it's cold, but what happens when it melts? It's a ... ALBER ELBAZ We work with every one of them to see if their character wouldn't say a certain thing or if some... SIMON PEGG But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four e... ANTONIO TABUCCHI Whether it's trivial or important, every choice has a moral aspect to it to a certain degree. PARK CHAN-WOOK I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three ... RIDLEY PEARSON Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is nev... A WALK TO REMEMBER When it's clear that we have a commitment to God that comes before anything else in our lives, most ... CRAIG GROESCHEL Everyone is their own kind of lesbian. To think there's a certain way to dress or present yourse... PORTIA DE ROSSI I grew up on certain movies, particular movies that said something to me as a kid from Missouri, mov... BRAD PITT If I wanted to know what a certain future would feel like to me, I would find someone who is already... DANIEL GILBERT If you have anything, or if I have anything, it's because it's been given to us by our Creat... DAVID GREEN 'Stimela' is the very first video I directed. I wanted it to be an emotional visual art piec... WYNTER GORDON Being an entrepreneur is a mindset. You have to see things as opportunities all the time. I like to ... SOLEDAD O'BRIEN Trumpet players see each other, and it's like we're getting ready to square off or get into ... WYNTON MARSALIS
More Pema Chodron
The Buddha taught that we're not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea. But when you... PEMA CHODRON According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a ... PEMA CHODRON As soon as you begin to believe in something, then you can no longer see anything else. The truth yo... PEMA CHODRON Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-d... PEMA CHODRON We can learn to rejoice in even the smallest blessings our life holds. It is easy to miss our own go... PEMA CHODRON It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that's sitting right here right now..... PEMA CHODRON I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your h... PEMA CHODRON Sometimes people's spiritual ideas become fixed and they use them against those who don't sh... PEMA CHODRON The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness f... PEMA CHODRON What's encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in igno... PEMA CHODRON When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bot... PEMA CHODRON A further sign of health is that we don't become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a m... PEMA CHODRON Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others. PEMA CHODRON Rejoicing in the good fortune of others is a practice that can help us when we feel emotionally shut... PEMA CHODRON You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather. PEMA CHöDRöN As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. Howeve... PEMA CHöDRöN We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can't relax with how things reall... PEMA CHöDRöN We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwoo... PEMA CHöDRöN WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we l... PEMA CHöDRöN If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell... PEMA CHöDRöN Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel... PEMA CHöDRöN The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is t... PEMA CHöDRöN PATIENCE is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path. PEMA CHöDRöN What we call obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where we’re... PEMA CHöDRöN When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we st... PEMA CHöDRöN We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless o... PEMA CHöDRöN …feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, i... PEMA CHöDRöN The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment. PEMA CHöDRöN Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equ... PEMA CHöDRöN We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, a... PEMA CHöDRöN If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher. PEMA CHöDRöN To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everyth... PEMA CHöDRöN When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle a... PEMA CHöDRöN In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we... PEMA CHöDRöN People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means ... PEMA CHöDRöN I realized that it is these two things that staying with regrets offers: It can become the seed of c... PEMA CHöDRöN The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . ... PEMA CHöDRöN Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be�... PEMA CHöDRöN Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth PEMA CHöDRöN Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, ... PEMA CHöDRöN Affirmations are like screaming that you're okay in order to overcome this whisper that you're not..... PEMA CHöDRöN Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. PEMA CHöDRöN Patience is the training in abiding with the restlessness of our energy and letting things evolve at... PEMA CHöDRöN Everything is fresh, the essence of realization. PEMA CHöDRöN As for the way the inner inhabitants are created, if the obliteration [of sentient beings] occurs th... PEMA LUNGTOK GYATSO