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 fact our true nature and condition.

Pema Chödron

from the book The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

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Further quotes from the book The Places That Scare You:

• Cultivating equanimity
• Happiness
• Life preferences
• The root of happiness
• Awakening our unlimited potential
• Dissolving our self-importance
• Dissolving our fear
• At least until you die
• The first mark of existence
• Being in the middle of nowhere
• A flexible identity
• Our Shared Humanity
• Idiot Compassion
• Cultivating equanimity
• Compassion takes courage
• Abiding in openness
• The essence of generosity
• Doing all with one intention
• Threefold purity
• Stay!