77 Mind-Soothing Quotes from When Things Fall Apart By Pema Chödrön
When things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön can be the best friend of people suffering from depression,loneliness and addiction.Because it teaches you how to handle yours and others pain.From my own personal experience,i have learned that,the best way to handle depression and despair is to often read good books.when mind is fed regularly with healthy stuff,it no longer remains sick.
Another excellent book for handling anger,pain,loneliness and depression is The Untethered Soul.
Here are the quotes from When Things Fall Apart:
''Fear is a universal experience.
Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our
finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything
spontaneously does that. It's not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced
with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react
against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold
on to.Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.''
''So the next time you encounter
fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we
think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with
fear.''
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
''Things falling
apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. 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. Then they come
together again and fall apart again. It's just like that.The healing comes from
letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief,
for misery, for joy.''
''Thinking that we can find some
lasting pleasure and avoid pain is what in Buddhism is called samsara, a
hopeless cycle that goes round and round endlessly and causes us to suffer
greatly.''
''To stay with that shakiness-to stay
with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness
and wanting to get revenge-that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with
that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning
not to panic-this is the spiritual path.''
‘’All over the
world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever.
Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves,’Am I going to add to the
aggression in the world?’Every day, at the moment
when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, ‘Am I going to practice peace,
or am I going to war?’ ‘’
''All
addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it.
We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to
whatever it is that seems to ease the pain. In fact, the rampant materialism
that we see in the world stems from this moment. There are so many ways that
have been dreamt up to entertain us away from the moment, soften its hard edge,
deaden it so we don't have to feel the full impact of the pain that arises when
we cannot manipulate the situation to make us come out looking fine.''
''Basically,
disappointment, embarrassment, and all these places where we just cannot feel
good are a sort of death.We've just lost our ground completely; we are unable
to hold it together and feel that we're on top of things. Rather than realizing
that it takes death for there to be birth, we just fight against the fear of
death.''
''We might think, as
we become more open, that it's going to take bigger catastrophes for us to
reach our limit. The interesting thing is that, as we open more and more, it's
the big ones that immediately wake us up and the little things that catch us
off guard. However, no matter what the size, color, or shape is, the point is
still to lean toward the discomfort of life ·and see it clearly rather than to
protect ourselves from it.''
''In any case, the
point is not to try to get rid of thoughts, but rather to see their true
nature. Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really
they are like dream images. They are like an illusion-not really all that
solid.They are, as we say, just thinking.''
''It is said that we
can't attain enlightenment, let alone feel contentment and joy, without seeing
who we are and what we do, without seeing our patterns and our habits. This is called
maitri-developing loving-kindness and an unconditional friendship with
ourselves.''
''Not causing harm
obviously includes not killing or robbing or lying to people. It also includes
not being aggressive-not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our
minds.Learning not to cause harm to ourselves or others is a basic Buddhist teaching
on the healing power of nonaggression.''
''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.''
''As we become more wholehearted in
this journey of gentle honesty, it comes as quite a shock to realize how much
we've blinded ourselves to some of the ways in which we cause harm. Our style
is so ingrained that we can't hear when people try to tell us, either kindly or
rudely, that maybe we're causing some harm by the way we are or the way we
relate with others. We've become so used to the way we do things that somehow
we think that others are used to it too.''
''Underneath our ordinary lives,
underneath all the talking we do, all the moving we do, all the thoughts in our
minds,there's a fundamental groundlessness. It's there bubbling along all the
time. We experience it as restlessness and edginess.We experience it as fear.
It motivates passion, aggression, ignorance, jealousy, and pride, but we never
get down to the essence of it.Refraining is the method for getting to know the
nature of this restlessness and fear. It's
a method for settling into groundlessness.''
''Not
causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough
to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions
and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay
awake, slow down, and notice.''
''In Tibetan there's
an interesting word: ye tang che. The ye part means
"totally, completely," and the rest of it means "exhausted."
Altogether, ye tang che means totally tired out.We might say
"totally fed up." It describes an experience of complete
hopelessness, of completely giving up hope. This is an important point. This is
the beginning of the beginning. Without
giving up hope-that there's somewhere better to be, that there's someone better
to be-we will never relax with where we are or who we are.''
''To undo our very ancient and very
stuck habitual patterns of mind requires that we begin to turn around some of
our most basic assumptions.Believing in a solid, separate self, continuing to
seek pleasure and avoid pain, thinking that someone ‘out there’ is to blame for
our pain-one has to get totally fed up with these ways of thinking. One has to
give up hope that this way of thinking will bring us satisfaction. Suffering begins to dissolve when we can
question the belief or the hope that there's anywhere to hide.''
''Trying to get lasting security teaches
us a lot, because if we never try to do it, we never notice that it can't be
done. Turning our minds toward the dharma speeds up the process of discovery. At every turn we realize once again that
it's completely hopeless-we can't get any ground under our feet.''
''Dharma isn't a
belief; it isn't dogma. It
is
total appreciation of impermanence and change.''
''Nontheism is
finally realizing that there's no babysitter that you can count on. You just
get a good one and then he or she is gone. Nontheism is realizing that it's not
just babysitters that come and go. The whole of life is like that. This is the
truth, and the truth is inconvenient.''
''For those who want something to hold on to, life is
even more inconvenient.''
''Hope and fear is a
feeling with two sides. As long as there's one, there's always the other. This re-dok is the root of our
pain. Abandoning hope
is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning. You could even put "Abandon hope" on your
refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations like "Every day
in every way I'm getting better and better."
''Hope and fear come from feeling
that we lack something;they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax
with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We
feel that someone else knows what's going on, but that there's something
missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.''
''Rather
than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that
right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good
look. That's the compassionate thing to do. That's the brave thing to do. We could smell that piece of shit.
We could feel it; what is its texture, color, and shape?''
''Renounce … the tenacious hope that
we could be saved from being who we are. Renunciation is a teaching to inspire us
to investigate what's happening every time we grab something because we can't
stand to face what's coming.''
''what
happens with you when
you begin to feel uneasy, unsettled, queasy? Notice the panic, notice when you
instantly grab for something. That grabbing is based on hope….If we're willing to give up hope that
insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax
with the groundlessness of our situation.''
''Hopelessness is the basic
ground….We could save ourselves a lot of time by taking this message very
seriously right now.Begin the journey without hope of getting ground under your
feet. Begin with hopelessness.''
''All anxiety, all dissatisfaction,
all the reasons for hoping that our experience could be different are rooted in
our fear of death. Fear of death is always in the background. As the Zen master
Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, life is like
getting into a boat that's just about to sail out to sea and sink.''
It's very hard-no matter how much we hear about it-to believe in our own
death…. The one thing in life that we can really count on is incredibly
remote for all of us. We don't go so far as to say, ‘No way, I'm not going to
die,’because of course we know that we are. But it definitely will be later.
That's the biggest hope.
''Death in everyday life could also
be defined as experiencing all the things that we don't want. Our marriage
isn't working;our job isn't coming together. Having a relationship with death
in everyday life means that we begin to be able to wait,to relax with
insecurity, with panic, with embarrassment,with things not working out.''
''So many times
we've indulged the short-term pleasure of addiction. We've done it so many
times that we know
that grasping at this hope is a source of misery that makes a short-term
pleasure a long-term hell.''
''If
we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the
present moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest,
direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and
death.''
''First, we like
pleasure; we are attached to it. Conversely,we don't like pain. Second, we like
and are attached to praise.We try to avoid criticism and blame. Third, we like
and are attached to fame. We dislike and try to avoid disgrace. Finally, we are
attached to gain, to getting what we want. We don't like losing what we have.''
''Whenever we're
feeling good, our thoughts are usually about things we like-praise, gain,
pleasure, and fame. When we're feeling uncomfortable and irritable and fed up,
our thoughts and emotions are probably revolving around something like pain,
loss, disgrace, or blame.''
''There’s no way to
benefit anybody unless we start with ourselves.''
''Scrambling for security has never
brought anything but momentary joy. It's like changing the position of our legs
in meditation. Our legs hurt from sitting cross-legged, so we move them. And
then we feel, ‘Phew! What a relief!’ But two and a half minutes later, we want to
move them again. We keep moving around seeking pleasure, seeking comfort, and
the satisfaction that we get is very short-lived.''
''We don't deserve
resolution; we deserve something better than that.We deserve our birthright,
which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and
ambiguity.''
''When we're lonely in a ‘hot’ way,
we look for something to save us; we look for a way out. We get this queasy feeling
that we call loneliness, and our minds just go wild trying to come up with companions
to save us from despair.That's called unnecessary activity. It's a way of
keeping ourselves busy so we don't have to feel any pain.''
''Could
we just settle down and have some compassion and respect for ourselves? Could
we stop trying to escape from being alone with ourselves? What about practicing
not jumping and grabbing when we begin to panic? Relaxing with loneliness is a worthy
occupation.''
''There's no certainty about
anything. This basic truth hurts, and we want to run away from it.''
''what
we're doing as we progress along the path is leaving home and becoming
homeless.''
''When you wake up in the morning and out of nowhere comes
the heartache of alienation and loneliness, could you use that as a golden
opportunity? Rather than persecuting yourself or feeling that something
terribly wrong is happening,right there in the moment of sadness and longing,
could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart?The next time
you get a chance, experiment with this.''
''There’s nothing
wrong with impermanence, suffering, and egolessness; they can be celebrated.
Our fundamental situation is joyful.''
''Impermanence is a principle of
harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.''
''Whoever
got the idea that we could have pleasure without pain? It's promoted rather
widely in this world, and we buy it. But pain and pleasure go together; they
are inseparable. They
can be celebrated.They are ordinary. Birth is painful
and delightful. Death is painful and delightful. Everything that ends is also the
beginning of something else. Pain is not a punishment;pleasure is not a reward.''
''Inspiration and wretchedness are
inseparable….With only inspiration, we become arrogant. With only wretchedness,
we lose our vision. Feeling inspired cheers us up, makes us realize how vast
and wonderful our world is. Feeling wretched humbles us. The gloriousness of
our inspiration connects us with the sacredness of the world. But when the tables
are turned and we feel wretched, that softens us up. It ripens our hearts. It
becomes the ground for understanding others. Both the inspiration and the
wretchedness can be celebrated.We can be big and small at the same time.''
''Recognize impermanence and
suffering and egolessness at the kitchen-sink level, and be inquisitive about
your reactions. Find out for yourself about peace and whether or not it's true
that our fundamental situation is joyful.''
''What may appear to be an arrow or a
sword we can actually experience as a flower. Whether we experience what happens to us as obstacle and
enemy or as teacher and friend depends entirely on our perception of reality.
It depends on our relationship with ourselves.''
''Maybe the only enemy is that we
don't like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we
find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us
what we need to know.
If we run a hundred
miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the
obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just
keeps returning with new names, forms, and manifestations until we learn
whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from
reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of
allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating
or retreating into ourselves.''
''we noticed very clearly what we did
when we felt attacked, betrayed, or confused, when we found situations
unbearable or unacceptable. We began to really notice what we did. Did we close
down, or did we open up? Did we feel resentful and bitter, or did we soften?Did
we become wiser or more stupid? As a result of our pain,did we know more about
what it is to be human, or did we know less? Were we more critical of our world
or more generous?Were we penetrated by the arrows, or did we turn them into
flowers?''
''when we feel embarrassed or
awkward, when pain presents itself to us in any form whatsoever, we run like
crazy to try to become comfortable. Any obstacle we encounter has the power to
completely pull the rug out, to completely pop the bubble of reality that we
have come to regard as secure and certain. When we are threatened that way, we
can't stand to feel the pain, the edginess, the anxiety, the queasiness in our
stomach, the heat of anger rising, the bitter taste of resentment.Therefore, we
try to grasp something pleasant. We react with this tragically human habit of
seeking pleasure and trying to avoid pain.''
''we
are all addicted to avoiding pain. When pain arises, we reach again and again
for something that will blot it out.
Maybe we drink or take drugs or just chew gum or turn on the radio.We might
even use meditation to try to escape from the more awkward, unpleasant, and
penetrating aspects of being alive.Someone has just shot an arrow or raised a
sword, and instead of allowing it to change into a flower, we run, trying to escape
in all kinds of ways. There are, of course, endless ways of seeking pleasure
and avoiding pain.''
''Just as we are on the verge of
really understanding something, allowing our heart to truly open, just as we have the opportunity to see
clearly, we put on a Groucho Marx mask with fluffy eyebrows and a big nose.Then
we refuse to laugh or let go, because we might discover who knows what?''
''sooner
or later, we're going to have an experience we can't control: our house is going
to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we're going to find out we have
cancer, a brick is going to fall out of
the sky and hit us on the head, somebody's going to spill tomato juice all over
our white suit, or
we're going to arrive at our favorite restaurant and discover that no one
ordered produce and seven hundred people are coming for lunch.''
''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.''
''Looking at the arrows and swords,
and how we react to them, we can always return to basic wisdom mind. Rather than
trying to get rid of something or buying into a dualistic sense of being
attacked, we take the opportunity to see how we close down when we're squeezed.
This is how we open our hearts. It is
how we awaken our intelligence and connect with fundamental buddha nature.''
''Whether
we're eating or working or meditating or listening or talking, the reason that
we're here in this world at all is to study ourselves. In fact, it has been
said that studying ourselves provides all the books we need.''
''The only reason that 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.''
''Recently I was talking with an old man who has been
living on the streets for the last four years. Nobody ever looks at him. No one
ever talks to him. Maybe somebody gives him a little money, but nobody ever
looks in his face and asks him how he's doing. The feeling that he doesn't
exist for other people, the sense of loneliness and isolation, is intense. He reminded
me that the essence of compassionate speech or compassionate action is to be
there for people, without pulling back in horror or fear or anger.''
''If we find ourselves unworkable and give
up on ourselves, then we'll find others unworkable and give
up on them. 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. Compassion isn't some kind of
self-improvement project or ideal that we're trying to live up to.''
''Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, to try to
protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves. Rather than own that
pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.''
''How do I learn to
communicate with somebody who is hurting me or someone who is hurting a lot of
people? How do I speak to someone so that some change actually occurs? How do I
communicate so that the space opens up and both of us begin to touch in to some
kind of basic intelligence that we all share? In a
potentially violent encounter, how do I communicate so that neither of us
becomes increasingly furious and aggressive? How do I communicate to the heart
so that a stuck situation can ventilate? How do I communicate so that things
that seem frozen, unworkable, and eternally aggressive begin to soften
up, and some kind of compassionate exchange begins to happen?''
''This kinship with the suffering of others, this
inability to continue to regard it from afar, is the discovery of our soft spot,
the discovery of bodhichitta. 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.''
''We think that by protecting ourselves from suffering
we are being kind to ourselves. The truth is, we only become more fearful, more
hardened, and more alienated. We experience ourselves as being separate
from the whole. This separateness becomes like a prison for us, a prison that
restricts us to our personal
hopes and fears and to caring only for the people nearest to us. Curiously
enough, if we primarily try to shield ourselves from discomfort, we suffer. Yet
when we don't close off and we let our hearts break, we discover our kinship
with all beings.''
''His Holiness the
Dalai Lama describes two kinds of selfish people: the unwise and the
wise.Unwise selfish people think only of themselves, and the result is
confusion and pain. Wise selfish people know that the best thing they can do
for themselves is to be there for others. As a result, they experience joy.''
''When we see a woman and her child begging on the
street,when
we see a man mercilessly beating his terrified dog, when we see a teenager who
has been badly beaten or see fear in the eyes of a child, do we turn away because we can't bear it?Most of us probably do.
Someone needs to encourage us not to brush aside what we feel, not to be
ashamed of the love and grief it arouses in us, not to be afraid of pain.
Someone needs to encourage us that this soft spot in us could be awakened and
that to do this would change our lives.''
''When we feel inadequate and
unworthy, we hoard things. We are so afraid-afraid of losing, afraid of feeling even more poverty-stricken
than we do already. This stinginess is extremely sad. We could look into it and
shed a tear that we grasp and cling so fearfully. This holding on causes us to
suffer greatly. We wish for comfort, but instead we reinforce aversion, the
sense of sin, and the feeling that we are a hopeless case.''
''Giving material
goods can help people. If
food
is needed and we can give it, we do that. If shelter is needed, or books or medicine
are needed, and we can give them, we do that.As best we can, we can care for
whoever needs our care.Nevertheless, the
real transformation takes place when we let go of our attachment and give away
what we think we can't.What we do on the outer level has the power to loosen up
deep-rooted patterns of holding on to ourselves.''
''By patience, we do not mean
enduring-grin and bear it. In any situation, instead of reacting suddenly, we
could chew it, smell it, look at it, and open ourselves to seeing what's there.
The opposite of patience is aggression-the desire to jump and move, to push
against our lives, to try to fill up space. The journey of patience involves relaxing,
opening to what's happening, experiencing a sense of wonder.''
''Every time we give,
every time we practice discipline, patience, or exertion, it's like putting
down a heavy burden.''
''Opinions are
opinions, nothing more or less. We can begin to notice them, and we can begin
to label them as opinions, just as we label thoughts as thoughts. Just by this
simple exercise we are introduced to the notion of egolessness. All ego really
is, is our opinions, which we take to be solid, real, and the absolute truth
about how things are.''
''The next time there's no ground to stand on, don't
consider it an obstacle. Consider it a remarkable stroke of luck.We have no
ground to stand on, and at the same time it could soften us and inspire us.
Finally, after all these years, we could truly grow up.''
''There are three
traditional methods for relating directly with difficult circumstances as a
path of awakening and joy.The first method we'll call no more struggle; the
second, using poison as medicine; and the third, seeing whatever arises as enlightened
wisdom. These are three techniques for working with chaos, difficulties, and
unwanted events in our daily lives.''
''Approach what you find repulsive, help
the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.''
''We don't experience the
world fully unless we are willing to give everything away. Samaya means not holding
anything back, not preparing our escape route, not looking for alternatives,
not thinking that there is ample time to do things later.''
Even if every inch of our being
wants to run in the opposite direction, we stay here. There is no other way to enter
sacred world. We have to stop thinking that we can get away and settle down
somewhere else. Instead, we could just relax with exhaustion,
indigestion, insomnia, irritation, delight, whatever.
''Usually we feel that there's a
large problem and we have to fix it. The instruction is to stop. Do something unfamiliar. Do anything besides rushing off in the
same old direction, up to the same old tricks.''
''If there's any
possibility for enlightenment, it's right now, not at some future time. Now is
the
time.''
''When something hurts in life, we
don't usually think of it as our path or as the source of wisdom. In fact, we
think that the reason we're on the path is to get rid of this painful feeling.
(When I get to L.A., I won't feel this way anymore.)At that level of wanting to
get rid of our feeling, we naively cultivate a subtle aggression against
ourselves.''
''What we do accumulates; the future
is the result of what we do right now.''
''When we find ourselves in a mess,
we don't have to feel guilty about it. Instead, we could reflect on the fact
that how we relate to this mess will be sowing the seeds of how we will relate
to whatever happens next. We can make ourselves miserable, or we can make
ourselves strong. The amount of effort is the same. Right now we are creating
our state of mind for tomorrow, not to mention this afternoon, next week, next
year, and all the years of our lives.''
Comments
Post a Comment