The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be just to keep moving.
Pema ChodronRead
Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Blaming others is a defense mechanism to shield one's vulnerability.
Pema Chodron's quote suggests that the act of blaming others serves as a protective barrier for our own emotional tenderness. It highlights how, when faced with hurt or discomfort, individuals may deflect responsibility onto others in an attempt to guard their fragile inner selves, rather than confronting their own vulnerabilities and feelings.
Themes
BlameProtectionVulnerabilityTendernessHeart
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal growth and responsibility.
More from Pema Chodron
All quotes →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.
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When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
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It's said that when we die, the four elements - earth, air, fire and water - dissolve one by one, each into the other, and finally just dissolve into space. But while we're living, we share the energy that makes everything, from a blade of grass to an elephant, grow and live and then inevitably wear out and die. This energy, this life force, creates the whole world.
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Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
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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 ChodronRead
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