A Quote by Pema Chodron

The Buddha taught that flexibility and openness bring strength and that running from groundlessness weakens us and brings pain. But do we understand that becoming familiar with the running away is the key? Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well
Openness doesn’t come from resisting our fears but rather from getting to know them well.
Finding the courage to go to the places that scare us cannot happen without compassionate inquiry into the workings of ego... Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from getting to know them well.
If greater openness is a key to economic success, I believe there is increasingly a need for openness in the political sphere as well.
Most of us live in the past, carrying our hurts, guilts and fears. We have to face the pain we carry, lest we spend the rest of our lives running away from it or letting it run us. But the only place you'll ever meet the real is now-here.
Trust, love, what we call sexy, who we trust in a business situation, are all based on how open we are. Openness is bodily openness, muscular relaxation, heart openness as opposed to hiding behind some emotional wall, and spiritual openness, which is actually feeling so fully into the moment that there's no separation between you and the entire moment.
Hiring people with diverse backgrounds brings in a flexibility of thought and openness to new ways of doing things, as opposed to hiring clones from business schools who have been taught a codified way of doing business.
First we must see that we cannot will ourselves to be open because openness is our very nature. Any tiny residue of willing, of wanting to be open takes us away from what we are. Willing never goes beyond willing. So the only way to be free from this circle is to glimpse the truth that openness is the egoless state, that it is here and now
Nearly every morning, a certain woman in our community comes running out of her house with her face white and her overcoat flapping wildly. She cries out, "Emergency, emergency," and one of us runs to her and holds her until her fears are calmed. We know she is making it up; nothing is has really happened to her. But we understand, because there is hardly one of us who has no been moved at some time to do just what she has done, and every time, it has taken all our strength, and even the strength of our friends and families, too, to keep us quiet.
I’m not running away from my responsibilities. I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.
Creativity has always depended on openness and flexibility, so let us hope for more of both in the future.
I'm not running away from my fears," I told Dane. "I'm running away from my relatives.
Openness without strength is useless; strength without openness is oppression.
Some of us have a hard time believing that we are actually able to face our own pain. We have convinced ourselves that our pain is too deep, too frightening, something to avoid at all costs. Yet if we finally allow ourselves to feel the depth of that sadness and gently let it break our hearts, we may come to feel a great freedom, a genuine sense of release and peace, because we have finally stopped running away from ourselves and from the pain that lives within us.
It really is a fact that liberals are much higher than conservatives on a major personality trait called 'openness to experience.' People who are high on openness to experience just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, travel. People low on it like things that are familiar, that are safe and dependable.
Tolerance, openness to argument, openness to self-doubt, willingness to see other people's points of view - these are very liberal and enlightened values that people are right to hold, but we can't allow them to delude us to the point where we can't recognise people who are needlessly perpetrating human misery.
During relaxation we drop our guard. Particularly in conversation. Relaxed conversation leads to openness. And in openness we often reveal what should never be revealed.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!