Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön: Watering the Seed of Goodwill

“Making the aspirations is like watering the seed of goodwill so it can begin to grow. In the course of doing this we’ll become acquainted with our barriers—numbness, inadequacy, skepticism, resentment, righteous indignation, pride, and all the others. As we continue to do this practice, we make friends with our fears, our grasping, and our aversion. Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons. Everything we encounter thus becomes an opportunity for practicing loving-kindness.”

― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You:
A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön: Be Grateful to Everyone

“Be grateful to everyone" is about making peace with the aspects of ourselves that we have rejected... If we were to make a list of people we don't like - people we find obnoxious, threatening, or worthy of contempt - we would discover much about those aspects of ourselves that we can't face... other people trigger the karma that we haven't worked out.”

― Pema Chödrön, Comfortable with Uncertainty:
108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

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Daily Insight: Starting to Say Yes to Life

“The whole journey of renunciation, or starting to say yes to life, is first of all realizing that you've come up against your edge, that everything in you is saying no, and then at that point, softening. This is yet another opportunity to develop loving-kindness of yourself, which results in playfulness--learning to play like a raven in the wind.”

― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape:
How to Love Yourself and Your World

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön: The Relationship of Compassion

“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 Chödrön,
The Places That Scare You:

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön Building Sand Castles

“We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.”

― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart:
Heart Advice for Difficult Times

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön: A Barrier Called Blame

“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. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society.

It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others....Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”

― Pema Chödrön

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön: Wake Up

“Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It’s going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate. You can leave your marriage, you can quit your job, you can only go where people are going to praise you, you can manipulate your world until you’re blue in the face to try to make it always smooth, but the same old demons will always come up until finally you have learned your lesson, the lesson they came to teach you.”

― Pema Chödrön, Awakening Loving-Kindness

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön: Six Teachings Misinterpreted

“There are six teachings that you might misinterpret: patience, yearning, excitement, compassion, priorities, and joy. The misinterpretations are: You’re patient when it means you’ll get your way but not when your practice brings up challenges. You yearn for worldly things but not for an open heart and mind. You get excited about wealth and entertainment but not about your potential for enlightenment. You have compassion for those you like and admire but not for those you don’t. Worldly gain is your priority rather than cultivating loving-kindness and compassion. You feel joy when your enemies suffer, but you do not rejoice in others’ good fortune.”

― Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind:
And Other Lojong Teachings on Awakening
Compassion and Fearlessness

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön on Inherent Restlessness

"In meditation we discover our inherent restlessness. Sometimes we get up and leave. Sometimes we sit there but our bodies wiggle and squirm and our minds go far away. This can be so uncomfortable that we feel it’s impossible to stay. Yet this feeling can teach us not just about ourselves but what it is to be human…we really don’t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience. It goes against the grain to stay present. These are the times when only gentleness and a sense of humor can give us the strength to settle down…so whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to “stay” and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What’s for lunch? Stay! I can’t stand this another minute! Stay!””

― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You:
A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

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Daily Insight: Pema Chödrön on the Warrior’s Tools

“Wherever we are, we can train as a warrior. Our tools are sitting meditation, tonglen, slogan practice, and cultivating the four limitless qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.”

― Pema Chödrön,
Comfortable with Uncertainty:
108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

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Daily Insight: The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chödrön

“We ourselves can sort out what to accept and what to reject. We can discern what will make us complete, sane, grown-up people, and what—if we are too involved in it—will keep us children forever. This is the process of making friends with ourselves and with our world. It involves not just the parts we like, but the whole picture, because it all has a lot to teach us.”

― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape:
And the Path of Loving-kindness

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Words of Wisdom for Dec. 21, 2019: Pema Chödrön on Our Habitual Patterns

"Our habitual patterns are, of course, well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wishing for them to be ventilated isn’t enough. Mindfulness and awareness are key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by a strong emotion, do we remember that it is part of our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can’t practice when distracted but know that we can’t, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on."

— Pema Chödrön, Comfortable with Uncertainty:
108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion

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Words of Wisdom for Dec. 6, 2019: Pema Chödrön: The Best Use of Our Lives

"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 Chödrön, The Pocket Pema Chödrön

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Words of Wisdom for Nov. 20, 2019: A Barrier Called Blame

"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. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society.

It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others....Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground."

— Pema Chödrön

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Words of Wisdom for Oct. 20, 2019: Pema Chödrön on Karma

"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. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn't understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you're given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further."

— Pema Chödrön

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Words of Wisdom for Oct. 8, 2019: Pema Chödrön: The Manure of Waking Up

“When one of the emperors of China asked Bodhidharma (the Zen master who brought Zen from India to China) what enlightenment was, his answer was, “Lots of space, nothing holy.” Meditation is nothing holy. Therefore there’s nothing that you think or feel that somehow gets put in the category of “sin.” There’s nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of “bad.” There’s nothing that you can think or feel that gets put in the category of “wrong.” It’s all good juicy stuff—the manure of waking up, the manure of achieving enlightenment, the art of living in the present moment.”

― Pema Chödrön,
Start Where You Are:
A Guide to Compassionate Living

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Words of Wisdom for Sept. 27, 2019: Pema Chödrön on Forgiveness

"My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay."

— Pema Chödrön.
The Places That Scare You:
A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

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Words of Wisdom for Sept. 5, 2019: Pema Chödrön on Curiosity

"A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is."

— Pema Chödrön,
The Pocket Pema Chodron

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Words of Wisdom for Aug. 20, 2019: Pema Chödrön on Avoiding Pain

"What causes misery is always trying to get away from the facts of life, always trying to avoid pain and seek happiness—this sense of ours that there could be lasting security and happiness available to us if we could only do the right thing."

— Pema Chödrön,
The Pocket Pema Chodron

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Words of Wisdom for Aug. 14, 2019: Pema Chödrön on Letting Go

"I used to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read: Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us...It was all about letting go of everything."

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

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