When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay. In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all. Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.
It isn’t that we say, “It doesn’t matter about me all that much, but if I changed the world, it would be better for other people.” It’s less complicated than that. We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts.
Pema Chödron
from the book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Read a random quote or see all quotes by Pema Chödron.
Further quotes from the book When Things Fall Apart:
- Abandoning hope
- Becoming unstuck
- Moving closer to the truth
- Just being here again and again and again
- The courage to look at ourselves honestly and gently
- Opening our hearts and minds beyond limit
- Being with us
- Cultivating Peace
- It’s just like that
- The path of true awakening
- Undoing of old ways of seeing
- Awakening is essential
- Exposing ourselves to annihilation
- Negativity begets negativity
- Until we got it
- Fully alive
- Disappointment
- Become Familiar with Fear
- How are you
- Only in our own experience