Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears by Pema Chodron

Our resentments and self-centeredness, as familiar as they are, are not our basic nature.

In the face of anything we don't like, we automatically try to escape.

Unconsciously we expect that if we could just get the right job, the right partner, the right something, our lives would run smoothly.

Shenpa itself is not the problem.  The ignorance that doesn't acknowledge that you're hooked, that just goes unconscious and allows you to act it out --- that's the problem. 

Rather than getting so caught up in the drama of who did what to whom, we could simply recognize that we're all worked up and stop fueling our emotions with our stories.  It's not so easy to do, but it's the key to our wellbeing.

Our repetitive suffering does not come from this uncomfortable sensation but from what happens next, what I've been calling following the momentum, spinning off, or getting swept away.  It comes from rejecting our own energy when it comes in a form we don't like.

How we relate moment by moment to what is happening on the spot is all there really is.

Being able to acknowledge shenpa, being able to know that we are getting stuck, this is the basis of freedom.

The ideal spiritual journey needs the balance of "gloriousness" and "wretchedness".

Each of us has our own capacity for prejudice, and it's very common to justify it when it comes up.  Our fixed ideas about "them" arise quickly.

When we pause, when we touch the energy of the moment, when we slow down and allow a gap, self-existing openness comes to us.

Usually when we're all caught up, we're so engrossed in our storyline that we lose our perspective.

The natural warmth that emerges when we experience pain includes all the heart qualities:  love, compassion, gratitude, tenderness in any form.  It also includes loneliness, sorrow, and the shakiness of fear.  Before these vulnerable feelings harden, before the storylines kick in, these generally unwanted feelings are pregnant with kindness, with openness and caring.

The life span of any particular emotion is only one and a half minutes.  After that we have to revive the emotion and get it going again.  Our usual process is that we automatically do revive it by feeding it with an internal conversation about how another person is the source of our discomfort.

The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. 

We have the opportunity to lead our lives in such a way that year by year we'll be less afraid, less threatened, and more able to spontaneously help others without asking ourselves, "What's in this for me?"

The boddhisattva or spiritual warrior begins the journey by looking honestly at the current state of his or her mind and emotions.  The path of saving others from confusion starts with our willingness to accept ourselves without deception.

Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron

All quotes from Pema's book

Compassion -- our ability to feel the pain that we share with others.  Without realizing it we continually shield ourselves from this pain because it scares us.  Based on a deep fear of being hurt, we erect protective walls made out of strategies, opinions, prejudices, and emotions. 

Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum.  We don't interrupt our patterns even slightly.  With practice, however, we learn to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with a desire for revenge.  Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn to relax in the midst of chaos.

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better.  It's about befriending who we are already.

We should never underestimate our low tolerance for discomfort.

Refraining is very much the method of becoming a dharmic person.  It's the quality of not grabbing for entertainment the minute we feel a slight edge of boredom coming on.  It's the practice of not immediately filling up space just because there's a gap.

We might as well stop struggling against our thoughts and realize that honesty and humor are far more inspiring and helpful than any kind of solemn religious striving for or against anything.

When things fall apart, instead of struggling to regain our concept of who we are, we can use it as an opportunity to be open and inquisitive about what has just happened and what will happen next.

Connecting with our experience by meeting it feels better than resisting it by moving away.  Being on the spot, even if it hurts, is preferable to avoiding.  As we practice moving into the present moment this way, we become more familiar with groundlessness, a fresh state of being that is available to us on an ongoing basis. 

Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well. 

We don't sit in meditation to become good meditators.  We sit in meditation so that we'll be more awake in our lives.

Pain is not punishment; pleasure is not a reward.

When we say, "I take refuge in the Buddha", it means I take refuge in the courage and the potential of fearlessness, or removing all the armor that covers this awakeness of mind.

The basic instruction is simple: start taking off that armor.  That's all anyone can tell you.  No one can tell you how to do it because you're the only one who knows how you locked yourself in there to start.

Now-- that's the key.  Mindfulness trains us to be awake and alive, fully curious, about now.  The out-breath is now, the in-breath is now, waking up from our fantasies is now, and even the fantasies are now.  The more you can be completely now, the more you realize that you're always standing in the middle of a sacred circle.

Wholeheartedness is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you.  You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably.

When you start to want to live your life fully instead of opting for death, you discover that life itself is inconvenient.

Begin with being willing to feel what you are going through.  Be willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of yourself that you feel are not worthy of existing.

The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings you need in order to open your heart.

The causes of aggression and fear begin to dissolve by themselves when we move past the poverty of holding back and holding on.

Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what's happening.

The more you're willing to open your heart, the more challenges come along.

As long as you're wanting yourself to get better, you won't.

Noticing where we open up and where we shut down -- without praise or blame -- is the basis of our practice.

Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.

Patience is not learned in safety.  It is not learned when everything is harmonious and going well.

Be curious about the neurosis that's bound to kick in when our coping mechanisms start falling apart.

This is the path we take in cultivating joy: learning not to armor our basic goodness, learning to appreciate what we have.

The Compassion Book by Pema Chodron

All quotes from Pema's book

We can use everything we encounter in our lives -- pleasant or painful -- to awaken genuine, uncontrived compassion.

Obsessing about what you want and avoiding what you don't want does not result in happiness.

Whatever you experience in your life -- pain, pleasure, heat, cold, or anything else -- is like something happening in a dream.  Although you might think things are very solid, they are like passing memory.

Everyone is looking for someone to blame and therefore aggression and neurosis keep expanding.  Instead, pause and look at what's happening with you.  When you hold on so tightly to your view of what they did; you get hooked.

Others will always show you exactly where you are stuck.  They say or do something and you automatically get hooked into a familiar way of reacting -- shutting down, speeding up, or getting all worked up. 

The unexpected will stop your mind: rest in that space.

Realizing that this limited identity isn't solid and is dissolving, do not indulge in trying to keep it from falling apart.

It is important to include everyone and everything that you meet as part of your practice.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

All quotes from Pema's book

Every day we could think about the aggression in the world, in New York, Los Angeles, Halifax, Taiwan, Beirut, Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq, everywhere.  All over the world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever.  Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, “Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?”  Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, “Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?”  

What we habitually regard as obstacles are not really our enemies, but rather our friends.  What we call obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where we’re stuck.

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.  From the awakened point of view, that’s life.  Death is wanting to hold on to what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together.

Living Beautifully with Uncertainty & Change by Pema Chodron

All quotes from Pema's book

Our attempts to find lasting pleasure, lasting security, are at odds with the fact that we're part of a dynamic system in which everything and everyone is in process.

We grab at pleasure and try to avoid pain.... Under the illusion that experiencing constant security and well-being is the ideal state, we do all sorts of things to try to achieve it. 

Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness.

To be in denial: you can't hear anything that doesn't fit into your fixed identity.  Even something positive -- you're kind or you did a great job or you have a wonderful sense of humor -- is filtered through this fixed identity.

The purpose of the spiritual path is to unmask, to take off our armor.  When that happens, it feels like a crisis because it is a crisis -- a fixed-identity crisis.

The real cause of suffering is not being able to tolerate uncertainty.

The fixed identity is our false security.  We maintain it by filtering all of our experience through this perspective. 

When we don't like someone -- they're not on our wavelength, so we don't want to hang out with them -- it's generally because they challenge our fixed identity.  We're uncomfortable in their presence because they don't confirm us in the ways we want to be confirmed, so we can't function in the ways we want to function.

The discomfort associated with groundlessness, with the fundamental ambiguity of being human, comes from our attachment to wanting things to be a certain way.

The suffering we experience with physical pain is entirely conceptual. It comes not from the sensation itself but from how we view it.

In Buddhism, strong emotions like anger, craving, pride, and jealousy are known as kleshas -- conflicting emotions that cloud the mind.  The kleshas are our vehicle for escaping groundlessness, and therefore every time we give in to them, our preexisting habits are reinforced.

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.

When you practice staying present, one thing you'll quickly discover is how persistent the story line is.

It isn't the content of our movie that needs our attention, it's the projector.  It isn't the current story line that's the root of our pain; it's our propensity to be bothered in the first place.

In not taking the old escape routes, we're predisposing ourselves to a new way of seeing ourselves.

You build your inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts. 

It's a tricky business-- not rejecting any part of your self at the same time that you're becoming acutely aware of how embarrassing or painful some of those parts are.

Lovingkindness for yourself does not mean making sure you're feeling good all the time-- trying to set up your life so that you're comfortable every moment.  Rather, it means setting up your life so that you have time for meditation and self-reflection for kindhearted, compassionate self-honesty.

If we don't act on our craving for pleasure or our fear of pain, we're left in the wide-open, unpredictable middle.  The instruction is to rest in that vulnerable place.

At some point, you'll hit a wall of truth and wonder what you've been doing with your life.

Each of us lives in a reality we take to be the real one. This is how it is, we insist.  End of story.

Tonglen is a practice for thinking bigger, for touching into our sameness with all beings. 

The path to unshakable well-being lies in being completely present and open to all sights, all sounds, all thoughts -- never withdrawing, never hiding, never needing to jazz them up or tone them down.

Each person's life is like a mandala -- a vast, limitless circle.  We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear, and think forms the mandala of our life.... Everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening.  From this point of view, awakening is right at your fingertips continually.... It's up to you whether your life is a mandala of neurosis or a mandala of sanity.

Splendidness provides vision, and wretchedness grounds us.

If you can stay present in even the most challenging circumstances, the intensity of the situation will transform you.