Philosophy Quote by Pema Chodron — Inspiring Words on Life, Love & Wisdom

“When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless.”

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

“It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens.”

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

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

“To what do we really commit ourselves? Is it to palying it safe and to manipulating our life and our whole world, so that it will give us security and confirmation?...Do we refuge in small satisfied actions, of both speech and mind? Or do we take refuge in warriorship, in taking a leap, in going beyond our usual safety zones?”

“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

“I was living and dying in all the fibers of what is chewed and digested and in all the fibers that absorb the sun, consuming and digesting. Under the thatched arbor of a restaurant on a river-bank, where Olivia had waited for me, our teeth began to move slowly, with equal rhythm, and our eyes stared into each other's with the intensity of serpents'—serpents concentrated in the ecstasy of swallowing each other in turn, as we were aware, in our turn, of being swallowed by the serpent that digests us all, assimilated ceaselessly in the process of ingestion and digestion, in the universal cannibalism that leaves its imprint on every amorous relationship and erases the lines between our bodies and sopa de frijoles, huachinango a la vera cru-zana, and enchiladas.”

“It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.”

“Quando ouvimos os sinos, ouvimos aquilo que já trazemos em nós mesmos como modelo. Sou da opinião que não se deverá desprezar aquele que olhar atentamente para as manchas da parede, para os carvões sobre a grelha, para as nuvens, ou para a correnteza da água, descobrindo, assim, coisas maravilhosas. O génio do pintor há-de se apossar de todas essas coisas para criar composições diversas: luta de homens e de animais, paisagens, monstros, demónios e outras coisas fantásticas. Tudo, enfim, servirá para engrandecer o artista.”