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 put one foot in front of the other and are not discouraged when we fall flat on our faces. We act without self-congratulation or self-censure, without fearing criticism or expecting applause. Through continual practice we find out how to cross over the boundary between stuckness and waking up. It depends on our willingness to experience directly feelings we’ve been avoiding for many years. This willingness to stay open to what scares us weakens our habits of avoidance. It’s the way that ego-clinging becomes ventilated and begins to fade.

Pema Chödron
from the book The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
Read a random quote or see all quotes by Pema Chödron.
Further quotes from the book The Places That Scare You:
- Cultivating equanimity
- The essence of generosity
- Cultivating equanimity
- Doing all with one intention
- Stay!
- Whatever we encounter
- Dissolving our fear
- Nothing and no one is fixed
- Life preferences
- Abiding in openness
- The queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere
- Idiot Compassion
- The root of happiness
- Our Shared Humanity
- Being in the middle of nowhere
- At least until you die
- Everyday uncertainty
- The anxiety of opening
- Being inspired by everyday good fortune
- The first mark of existence