The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness

by Pema Chödrön

THERE’S A COMMON MISUNDERSTANDING AMONG all the human beings who have ever been born on the earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable. You can see this even in insects and animals and birds. All of us are the same. A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet.

When people start to meditate or to work with any kind of spiritual discipline, they often think that somehow they’re going to improve, which is a sort of subtle aggression against who they really are.

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

there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding that we should try to be better than we already are, that we should try to improve ourselves, that we should try to get away from painful things, and that if we could just learn how to get away from the painful things, then we would be happy. That is the innocent, naive misunderstanding that we all share, which keeps us unhappy.

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.

the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself.

our hangups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material.

Rinpoche used to say, “Notice your tone of voice when you say ‘thinking.’ ” It might be really harsh, but actually it’s just a euphemism for “Drat! You were thinking again, gosh darn it, you dummy.” You might really be saying, “You fool, you absolutely miserable meditator, you’re hopeless.” But it’s not that at all. All that’s happened is that you’ve noticed. Good for you, you actually noticed! You’ve noticed that mind thinks continuously, and it’s wonderful that you’ve seen that. Having seen it, let the thoughts go. Say, “Thinking.”