Finding words of wisdom to navigate life is no easy feat! While sometimes that means turning inward, there are plenty of quotes out there that offer valuable insight. And if you’re looking to lighten your mood while still tapping into profound insights, then look no further than these 23 Pema Chödrön quotes!
I love reading her books because they are filled with spiritual inspiration, practical wisdom, and timeless principles. Insight to help you grow as an individual and develop your consciousness. With her signature warmth and wry sense of humor in full force, these uplifting sayings will leave you feeling inspired and ready to take on whatever obstacles come your way.
I hope you enjoy these quotes by Pema Chödrön…
1) “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, all that lives and dies. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.” – Pema Chödrön
2) “Not causing harm obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people. It also includes not being aggressive – not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our minds. Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching on the healing power of nonaggression.”
3) “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” – Pema Chödrön
- Audible Audiobook
- Pema Chödrön (Author) – Joanna Rotte (Narrator)
- English (Publication Language)
- 12/26/2017 (Publication Date) – Random House Audio (Publisher)
4) “Could we just settle down and have some compassion and respect for ourselves? Could we stop trying to escape from being alone with ourselves? What about practicing not jumping and grabbing when we begin to panic? Relaxing with loneliness is a worthy occupation.” – Pema Chödrön
Compassion for difficult times…
5) “The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” – Pema Chödrön
6) “Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” – Pema Chödrön
7) “For those who want something to hold on to, life is even more inconvenient.” – Pema Chödrön
8) “If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” – Pema Chödrön
9) “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” – Pema Chödrön
Pema Chödrön Quotes About Uncertainty and Change
10) “Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice.” – Pema Chödrön
11) “People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.” – Pema Chödrön
12) “Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.” – Pema Chödrön
13) “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 Chödrön
14) “So the next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually, we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.” – Pema Chödrön
Mindfulness Quotes by Pema Chödrön
15) “If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart…” – Pema Chödrön
- Chodron, Pema (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 176 Pages – 11/06/2018 (Publication Date) – Shambhala (Publisher)
16) “The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes.” – Pema Chödrön
17) “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Pema Chödrön
Give yourself room for grief…
18) “We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Pema Chödrön
19) “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.” – Pema Chödrön
Pema Chödrön Quotes from When Things Fall Apart.
20) “We might think, as we become more open, that it’s going to take bigger catastrophes for us to reach our limit. The interesting thing is that, as we open more and more, it’s the big ones that immediately wake us up and the little things that catch us off guard. However, no matter what the size, color, or shape is, the point is still to lean toward the discomfort of life and see it clearly rather than to protect ourselves from it.” – Pema Chödrön
- Chodron, Pema (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 176 Pages – 06/07/2016 (Publication Date) – Shambhala (Publisher)
21) “What may appear to be an arrow or a sword we can actually experience as a flower. Whether we experience what happens to us as obstacle and enemy or as teacher and friend depends entirely on our perception of reality. It depends on our relationship with ourselves.” – Pema Chödrön
22) “Whenever we’re feeling good, our thoughts are usually about things we like – praise, gain, pleasure, and fame. When we’re feeling uncomfortable and irritable and fed up, our thoughts and emotions are probably revolving around something like pain, loss, disgrace, or blame.” – Pema Chödrön
23) “You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
Please share these quotes by Pema Chödrön with your friends and family.
Last update on 2024-04-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
