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
Obstacles are our friends: they teach us where we're stuck.
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
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.
Pema ChodronRead
When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
Pema ChodronRead
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.
Pema ChodronRead
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
Similar quotes
"The flowers have appeared in our land: the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land." When the soul, like the solitary turtle-dove, retires and recollects itself in meditation to converse with God, then the flowers, that is, good desires, appear; then comes the time of pruning, that is, the correction of faults that are discovered in mental prayer.
Alphonsus LiguoriRead
When you read the Bible, you must think that here and now, God is speaking with me
Dietrich BonhoefferRead
When our actions create discord in another person, we, ourselves, in this lifetime or another, will feel that discord. Likewise, if our actions create harmony and empowerment in another, we also come to feel that harmony and empowerment.
Gary ZukavRead
When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
LaoziRead
Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment.
Isaac WattsRead
Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.
John RuskinRead