Ginger > Ginger's Quotes

“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.”
― T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party

“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

“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”
― Pema Chodron

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth”
― Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“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

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.”
― Pema Chodron

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”
― 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 Chodron

“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right and who's wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society.

It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others....Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.”
― Pema Chodron

“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, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“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

“I used to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read: Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us...It was all about letting go of everything.”
― Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”
― Pema Chodron

“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

“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.”
― Pema Chodron

“We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people's wrongness.”
― Pema Chodron

“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, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

“The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.”
― Pema Chodron

“Once you create a self-justifying storyline, your emotional entrapment within it quadruples.”
― Pema Chodron