The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be just to keep moving.
Pema ChodronRead
If it's painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Pain can lead to personal growth and emotional openness.
This quote by Pema Chodron emphasizes the transformative power of pain. Rather than simply enduring suffering, we can allow it to awaken and soften our hearts, leading to a deeper understanding and acceptance of ourselves and our experiences. Embracing pain can ultimately bring about growth and compassion.
Themes
PainGrowthEmbracingHeartTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about resilience.
More from Pema Chodron
All quotes →Without giving up hope—that there’s somewhere better to be, that there’s someone better to be—we will never relax with where we are or who we are.
Pema ChodronRead
When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.
Pema ChodronRead
It's said that when we die, the four elements - earth, air, fire and water - dissolve one by one, each into the other, and finally just dissolve into space. But while we're living, we share the energy that makes everything, from a blade of grass to an elephant, grow and live and then inevitably wear out and die. This energy, this life force, creates the whole world.
Pema ChodronRead
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That’s the ground, that’s what we study, that’s what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.
Pema ChodronRead
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 ChodronRead
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It seems to me, that if people only knew how hard it was for me to endure life, they would find it easier to forgive me for all the wrong things I’ve done and all the good things that I have failed to do. And they would still find a little compassion within them to pity me.
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