Quotes from Pema Chodron

Each of us has a "soft spot": the place in our experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in pain.

Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

The third noble truth says that the cessation of suffering is letting go of holding on to ourselves.

The second noble truth says that this resistance is the...mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.

All ego really is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth about how things are.

We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be.

Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.

Remember that this is not something we do just once or twice. Interrupting our destructive habits and awakening our heart is the work of a lifetime.

It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.

Life's work is to wake up, to let the things that enter your life wake you up rather than put you to sleep.

Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what's out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.