Many of us prefer practices that will not cause discomfort, yet at the same time we want to be healed. But bodhichitta training doesn’t work that way. A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not knowing is part of the adventure, and it’s also what makes us afraid.

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:

• Everyday uncertainty
• 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