Lauren

“31 Don’t malign others.     COMMENTARY You speak badly of others thinking it will make you feel superior. This only sows seeds of meanness in your heart, causing others not to trust you and causing you to suffer.”
― Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind: And Other Lojong Teachings on Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness

“Change your attitude, but remain natural.”
― Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind: And Other Lojong Teachings on Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness

“key instruction is to stay in the present. Don’t get caught up in hopes of what you’ll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters.”
― Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind: And Other Lojong Teachings on Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness

“especially as it was taught by Chögyam Trungpa. He described the basic practice as being completely present. And emphasized that it allowed the space for our neuroses to come to the surface. It was not, as he put it, “a vacation from irritation.” He stressed that this basic practice, which is epitomized by the instruction to return again and again to the immediacy of our experience, to the breath, the feeling, or other object of meditation, uncovers a complete openness to things just as they are without conceptual padding. It allows us to lighten up and to appreciate our world and ourselves unconditionally. His advice on how to relate with fear or pain or groundlessness was to welcome it, to become one with it rather than split ourselves in two, one part of us rejecting or judging another part. His instruction on how to relate with the breath was to touch it lightly and let it go. His instruction on how to relate with the thoughts was the same: leave them free to dissolve back into space without making meditation into a self-improvement project. The”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears