Top 280 Pema Chödrön Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “Ego is something that you come to know – something that you befriend by not acting out or by repressing all the feelings that you feel.”

— Pema Chödrön

252. “Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us.”

— Pema Chödrön

253. “Ordinarily we are swept away by habitual momentum and don’t interrupt our patterns slightly. When we feel betrayed or disappointed, does it occur to us to practice?”

— Pema Chödrön

254. “What’s encouraging about meditation is that, even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we’re closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.”

— Pema Chödrön

255. “We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment.”

— Pema Chödrön

256. “When you open the door and invite in all sentient beings as your guests, you have to drop your agenda.”

— Pema Chödrön

257. “We can begin to open our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting anything back. We just do it for its own sake.”

— Pema Chödrön

258. “Trying to change ourselves doesn’t work in the long run because we’re resisting our own energy. Self-improvemen t can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.”

— Pema Chödrön

259. “Everything is fresh, the essence of realization.”

— Pema Chödrön

260. “Every day is a new opportunity to work with what you have inside toward enlightenment.”

— Pema Chödrön

261. “The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. The other problem is that our hang-ups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.”

— Pema Chödrön

262. “We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.”

— Pema Chödrön

263. “There’s a reason you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness.”

— Pema Chödrön

264. “Compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others.”

— Pema Chödrön

265. “If you follow your heart, you’re going to find that it is often extremely inconvenient.”

— Pema Chödrön

266. “Are you experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What’s for lunch? Stay! I can’t stand this another minute! Stay!”

— Pema Chödrön

267. “We don’t experience the world fully unless we are willing to give everything away.”

— Pema Chödrön

268. “Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn’t enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.”

— Pema Chödrön

269. “There’s something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one’s self, you know?”

— Pema Chödrön

270. “If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.”

— Pema Chödrön

271. “It’s important to remember, when we’re out there aggressively working for reform, that, even if our particular issue doesn’t get resolved, we are adding peace to the world. We have to do our best and at the same time give up all hope of fruition.”

— Pema Chödrön

272. “One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are. That’s not considered to be a problem. The point is to see it.”

— Pema Chödrön

273. “Sitting meditation gives us a way to move closer to our thoughts and emotions and to get in touch with our bodies.”

— Pema Chödrön

274. “There are many changes in the weather of a day.”

— Pema Chödrön

275. “Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.”

— Pema Chödrön

276. “Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.” – Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.”

— Pema Chödrön

277. “The most important aspect of being on a spiritual path may be to just keep moving.”

— Pema Chödrön

278. “As we practice, we begin to know the difference between our fantasy and reality.”

— Pema Chödrön

279. “Fear itself is the vanguard of wisdom.”

— Pema Chödrön

280. “By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in things, in that way our world is created.”

— Pema Chödrön

281. “I have all the support I need to simply relax and be with the transitional, in-process quality of my life. I have all I need to engage in the process of awakening.”

— Pema Chödrön

282. “Things are as bad and as good as they seem. There’s no need to add anything extra.”

— Pema Chödrön

283. “Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared.”

— Pema Chödrön

284. “As Buddhism moved from one culture to another, it always adapted.”

— Pema Chödrön

285. “As our kindness for ourselves grows, so does our kindness for other people.”

— Pema Chödrön

286. “When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast and limitless.”

— Pema Chödrön

287. “Better to join in with humanity than to set ourselves apart.”

— Pema Chödrön

288. “As Buddhism moved to the West, one of the big characteristics was the strong place of women. That didn’t exist in the countries of origin. It’s just a sign of our culture.”

— Pema Chödrön

289. “Sometimes we find that we like our thoughts so much that we don’t want to let them go.”

— Pema Chödrön

290. “The essence of our whole path is in that place of discomfort, and what do we do with it?”

— Pema Chödrön

291. “According to the Buddhist belief, you can go on and on indefinitely, so you see your life as just a brief moment in time.”

— Pema Chödrön

292. “A heartfelt sense of aspiring cuts through negativity about yourself; it cuts through the heavy trips you lay on yourself.”

— Pema Chödrön

293. “One piece of advice that Don Juan gave to Carlos Castaneda was to do everything as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, while all the time knowing that it doesn’t matter at all.”

— Pema Chödrön

294. “Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.”

— Pema Chödrön