Pema Chödrön is an American Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Profoundly inspirational Pema Chodron quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
If you’re searching for deep quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of Dalai Lama quotes, Thich Nhat Hanh quotes and Swami Vivekananda quotes.
Famous Pema Chodron Quotes
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. Pema Chödrön
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 Chodron
Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves. Pema Chödrön
You are the sky. Everything else it’s just the weather. Pema Chödrön
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
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
Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime. Pema Chödrön
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
Every day we think about the aggression in the world. Everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever. We could reflect on this and ask ourselves, Am I going to add to the aggression in the world? Everyday we can ask ourselves, Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war? Pema Chödrön
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher. Pema Chodron
Rather than being disheartened by the uncertainty of life, what if we accepted it and relaxed into it? What if we said, yes, this is the way it is; this is what it means to be human, and decided to sit down and enjoy the ride. Pema Chödrön
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. Pema Chodron
The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment. Pema Chödrön
The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves. Pema Chodron
Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life. Pema Chödrön
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
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. Pema Chödrön
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
The experiences of your life are trying to tell you something about yourself. Don’t cop out on that. Don’t run away and hide under your cover. Lean into it. Pema Chödrön
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 Chodron
Being open and receptive to whatever is happening is always more important than getting worked up and adding further aggression to the planet, adding further pollution to the atmosphere. Pema Chödrön
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
One can appreciate and celebrate each moment there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more! Pema Chödrön
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. Pema Chodron
Look ahead to the rest of your life and ask yourself what you want it to add up to. Pema Chödrön
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found. Pema Chodron
You must face annihilation over and over again to find what is indestructible in yourself. Pema Chödrön
Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain. Pema Chödrön
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Pema Chödrön
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. Pema Chodron
We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased. Pema Chödrön
Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know. Pema Chödrön
A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us. Pema Chödrön
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 Chodron
Sometimes when things fall apart, well, that’s the big opportunity to change. Pema Chödrön
A further sign of health is that we don’t become undone by fear and trembling, but we take it as a message that it’s time to stop struggling and look directly at what’s threatening us. Pema Chodron
Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away. Pema Chödrön
Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear? Pema Chodron
It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it’s how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer. Pema Chödrön
Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it. Pema Chodron
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. Pema Chödrön
We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea. Pema Chödrön
None of us is ever ok, but we all get through everything just fine. Pema Chödrön
We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people’s wrongness. Pema Chodron
When we protect ourselves so we won’t feel pain, that protection becomes armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart. Pema Chödrön
True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings. Pema Chodron
This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky that’s called liberation. Pema Chödrön
We have two alternatives either we question our beliefs or we don’t. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha’s opinion, to train in staying open and curious to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs is the best use of our human lives. Pema Chodron
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
As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. Pema Chödrön
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. Pema Chödrön
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. Pema Chödrön
Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions. Pema Chödrön
The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment. Pema Chodron
Don’t let people pull you into their storm. Pull them into your peace. Pema Chödrön
When we touch the center of sorrow, when we sit with discomfort without trying to fix it, when we stay present to the pain of disapproval or betrayal and let it soften us, these are times that we connect with bohdichitta. Pema Chödrön
Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened. Pema Chödrön
The more we witness our emotional reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. Pema Chödrön
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
Honesty without kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. Pema Chödrön
Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. Pema Chödrön
We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased. Pema Chödrön
If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher. Pema Chödrön
Everybody loves something, even if it’s only tortillas. Pema Chodron
