[quotes] When Things Fall Apart - Pema Chödrön 1997

 

"This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we are."

"The word for loving-kindness in Sanskrit is maitri. Maitri is also translated as unconditional friendliness."

"Practicing loving-kindness toward ourselves seems as good a way as any to start illuminating the darkness of difficult times."

"The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don't feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what's there."

"The trick is to enjoy fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea."

"Not wandering in the world of desire is about relating directly with how things are. Loneliness is not a problem. Loneliness is nothing to be solved. The same is true for any other experience we might have."

"Impermanence is meeting and parting. It's falling in love and falling out of love. Impermanence is bittersweet, like buying a new shit and years later finding it as part of a patchwork quilt."

"When you fall in love, recognize it as impermanence, and let that intensity the preciousness. When a relationship ends, recognize it as impermanence."

"But honesty without kindness makes us feel grim and mean, and pretty soon we start looking like we've been sucking on lemons."

"What we hate in ourselves, we'll hate in others. To the degree that we have compassion for ourselves, we will also have compassion for others. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves, all those imperfections that we don't even want to look at."

"Bodhichitta is a Sanskrit word that means 'noble or awakened heart.' It is said to be present in all beings. Just as butter is inherent in milk and oil is inherent in a sesame seed, this soft spot is inherent in you and me."

"To have even a few seconds of doubt about the solidity and absolute truth of our own opinions, just to begin to see that we do have opinions, introduces us to the possibility of egolessness. We don't have to make these opinions go away, and we don't have to criticize ourselves for having them. We could just notice what we say to ourselves and see how so much of it is just our particular take on reality, which may or may not be shared by other people."

"The samaya relationship with a vajrayana teacher is meant to help us: it's meant to introduce us to the fact that if we could have an unconditional relationship with even one person, we could have an unconditional relationship with the world."

"Even if we live to be 108, our life will be too short for witnessing all its wonders. The dharma is each act, each thought, each word we speak."

"Now is the only time. How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we're going to be more cheerful in the future, it's because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now."