The traditional aspiration used is ‘May I and others enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.’ In teaching this I’ve found that people sometimes have trouble with the word happiness. They say things like, ‘Suffering has taught me a lot and happiness gets me in trouble.’ They aren’t sure that happiness is what they wish […]
This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky – that’s called liberation. Pema Chödron
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are. Pema Chödron
The next time you go out in the world, you might try this practice: directing your attention to people — in their cars, on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones — just wish for them all to be happy and well. Without knowing anything about them, they can become very real, by regarding each […]
Many of our escapes are involuntary: addiction and dissociating from painful feelings are two examples. Anyone who has worked with a strong addiction—compulsive eating, compulsive sex, abuse of substances, explosive anger, or any other behavior that’s out of control—knows that when the urge comes on it’s irresistible. The seduction is too strong. So we train […]
There’s a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness. Pema Chödron
There’s the space that seems to be out there, like the sky and the ocean and the wind, and there’s the space that seems to be inside. We could let the whole thing mix up. We could let the whole thing just dissolve into each other and into one big space. Practice is about allowing […]
Hope and fear is a feeling with two sides. As long as there’s one, there’s always the other. This is the root of our pain. In the world of hope and fear, we always have to change the channel, change the temperature, change the music, because something is getting uneasy, something is getting restless, something […]
When we don’t run from everyday uncertainty, we can contact bodhicitta. Pema Chödron
Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world. Pema Chödron
People often say, ‘Meditation is all very well, but what does it have to do with my life?’ What it has to do with your life is that perhaps through this simple practice of paying attention – giving loving-kindness to your speech and your actions and the movements of your mind – you begin to […]
Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world. Pema Chödron
The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hangups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhicitta. The openness and warmth of bodhicitta is in […]
Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors – people who have a certain hunger to know what is true – feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it […]
To begin with, in meditation we can notice how emotions and moods are connected with having lost or gained something, having been praised or blamed, and so forth. We can notice how what begins as a simple thought, a simple quality of energy, quickly blossoms into full-blown pleasure and pain. We have to have a […]
We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves. Pema Chödron
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 […]
The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. Pema Chödron
As we learn to relax with groundlessness, this enthusiasm will emerge. We practice what is called the threefold purity – no big deal about the doer, no big deal about the action, no big deal about the result. This joyful exertion is rooted in no expectation, no ambition, no hope of fruition. We just eagerly […]
We all have the seeds of basic goodness within us — we only have to nourish them. Pema Chödron
