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Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
Pema Chodron
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Obstacles help us understand our limitations and promote personal growth.

This quote by Pema Chodron emphasizes the idea that challenges and obstacles are not just hindrances in life but valuable teachers that reveal our stagnations and areas for improvement. By embracing these challenges, we can learn about ourselves, grow from our experiences, and ultimately become more resilient and self-aware individuals.

Themes

ObstaclesGrowthLearningResilienceSelf-Awareness

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about perseverance.

More from Pema Chodron

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.
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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.
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