Pema Chodron

The only way to ease our pain is to experience it fully. Learn to stay with uneasiness, learn to stay with the tightening, so that the habitual chain reaction doesn't continue to rule your life.

Feel the feelings and drop the story.

The root of compassion, is compassion for oneself.

Constantly apply cheerfulness, if for no other reason than because you are on this spiritual path. Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up.

Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others.

While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.

Meditation is not about getting out of ourselves or achieving something better. It is about getting in touch with what you already are.

This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky - that's called liberation.

Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.

I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind to the person or situation that's right in front of you, and you miss so much.

So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.

There's nothing more important on our spiritual path than developing gentleness to oneself.

While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves. We can become the world's greatest experts on anger, jealousy, and self-deprecatio n, as well as on joyfulness, clarity, and insight. Everything that human beings feel, we feel. We can become extremely wise and sensitive to all of humanity and the whole universe simply by knowing ourselves, just as we are.

Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you're letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.

Without loving-kindness for ourselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

We're not trying to be something we aren't; rather, we're reconnecting with who we are.

Never underestimate the desire to bolt.

Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allowing ourselves to move gently toward what scares us.

What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.

We can stop struggling with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything - not about winning or losing - but about ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. That is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads into the rest of our lives.