Top 280 Pema Chödrön Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Learning Quotes, Spirituality Quotes

2. “You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Uplifting Quotes, Sky Quotes

3. “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

— Pema Chödrön

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

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Commitment Quotes, Determination Quotes

5. “Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Helping Quotes

6. “Feel the feelings and drop the story.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

7. “Be kinder to yourself. And then let your kindness flood the world.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Kindness Quotes

8. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience and Infinite love is the only truth; everything else is an illusion.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Love Is Quotes

9. “Difficult people are the greatest teachers.”

— Pema Chödrön

10. “We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Helping Others Quotes

11. “If you’re invested in security and certainty, you are on the wrong planet.”

— Pema Chödrön

12. “Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Compassion Quotes, Healing Quotes

13. “This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we go.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Teacher Quotes

14. “To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Practice Quotes

15. “Let your curiosity be greater than your fear.”

— Pema Chödrön

16. “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Meditation Quotes, Buddhist Quotes

17. “The most complete and true happiness comes in moments when you feel right there, completely present, with no ideas about good and bad, right and wrong – just a sense of open heart and open mind.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Quotes About Ideas

18. “Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?”

— Pema Chödrön

19. “We already have everything we need.”

— Pema Chödrön

20. “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 Chödrön

21. “All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.”

— Pema Chödrön

22. “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 Chödrön

23. “The ego seeks to divide and separate. Spirit seeks to unify and heal.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Ego Quotes

24. “Just where you are-that’s the place to start!”

— Pema Chödrön

25. “Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path.”

— Pema Chödrön

26. “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.”

— Pema Chödrön

27. “The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something – usually ourselves.”

— Pema Chödrön

28. “Our true nature is like a precious jewel: although it may be temporarily buried in mud, it remains completely brilliant and unaffected. We simply have to uncover it.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Mindfulness Quotes

29. “Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.”

— Pema Chödrön

30. “Determination means to use every challenge you meet as an opportunity to open your heart and soften, determined to not withdraw.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Determination Quotes

31. “Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back.”

— Pema Chödrön

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

— Pema Chödrön

33. “Resistance to unwanted circumstances has the power to keep those circumstances alive and well for a very long time.”

— Pema Chödrön

34. “The future is completely open and we are writing it moment to moment.”

— Pema Chödrön

35. “The idea of karma is that you continually get the teaching that you need to open your heart.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Teaching Quotes, Karma Quotes

36. “Pain is not a punishment; pleasure is not a reward.”

— Pema Chödrön

37. “The Process of becoming unstuck requires tremendous bravery, because basically we are completely changing our way of perceiving reality...”

— Pema Chödrön

38. “This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky – that’s called liberation.”

— Pema Chödrön

39. “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. Even if we run a hundred miles an hour to the other side of the continent, we find the very same problem awaiting us when we arrive.”

— Pema Chödrön

40. “The central question of a warrior’s training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort.”

— Pema Chödrön

41. “Fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth. If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.”

— Pema Chödrön

42. “What if rather than being disheartened by the ambiguity, the uncertainty of life, we accepted it and relaxed into it?”

— Pema Chödrön

43. “If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart...”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Buddhist Quotes

44. “Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you’re letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.”

— Pema Chödrön

45. “Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we night as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher rather than our enemy.”

— Pema Chödrön

46. “The essence of bravery is being without self-deception.”

— Pema Chödrön

47. “As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others – what and whom we can work with, and how – becomes wider.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Compassion Quotes

48. “I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be.”

— Pema Chödrön

49. “Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

— Pema Chödrön

Featured in: Real Quotes

50. “We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased.”

— Pema Chödrön