“It isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.”

10 Pema Chödrön quotes to inspire your weekend.

I’m day 12/100 of my meditation challenge.

It wasn’t planned but I started to look for inspirational quotes or articles to read after I meditated and I kept being drawn to Pema Chödrön’s words, articles, books.

I’ve been a fan for a long time. I made her our back page columnist when I was Editor at Psychologies - real, straight talking and funny - not perhaps what you’d quite expect from a Buddhist nun.

Never easy, comfy solutions from Pema but it feels to me like she speaks the truth of life.

1. “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.”

2. “Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.”

3.     “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know

4.     “WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.”

5.     “We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of coloured glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.”

6.     “We insist on being Someone, with a capital S. We get security from defining ourselves as worthless or worthy, superior or inferior. We waste precious time exaggerating or romanticising or belittling ourselves with a complacent surety that yes, that’s who we are. We mistake the openness of our being—the inherent wonder and surprise of each moment—for a solid, irrefutable self. Because of this misunderstanding, we suffer.”

7.     “Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.”

8.     “The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings. ”

9.     “Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

10.  “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.”