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
Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Compassion arises from self-awareness and understanding our dual nature of right and wrong.
In this quote, Pema Chodron emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and compassion. She suggests that true compassionate action begins when we recognize our own tendencies to judge ourselves as either right or wrong. By acknowledging this internal conflict, we can open ourselves to a different, more gentle perspective that allows for greater understanding and empathy towards ourselves and others. This viewpoint encourages us to embrace vulnerability and seek a more compassionate approach to living.
Themes
CompassionSelf-AwarenessTendernessAcceptanceVulnerability
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about personal growth and mental health.
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.
Pema ChodronRead
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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