Lauren

“There are six teachings that you might misinterpret: patience, yearning, excitement, compassion, priorities, and joy. The misinterpretations are: You’re patient when it means you’ll get your way but not when your practice brings up challenges. You yearn for worldly things but not for an open heart and mind. You get excited about wealth and entertainment but not about your potential for enlightenment. You have compassion for those you like and admire but not for those you don’t. Worldly gain is your priority rather than cultivating loving-kindness and compassion. You feel joy when your enemies suffer, but you do not rejoice in others’ good fortune.”
― Pema Chödrön, Always Maintain a Joyful Mind: And Other Lojong Teachings on Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness

“Don’t ponder others’ weak points, becoming arrogant about your own accomplishments.”
― 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

“Envy can be an arrow that points to the things you want.”
― Sarah Hepola, Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget