Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

by Pema Chödrön

We have the capacity to wake up and live consciously, but, you may have noticed, we also have a strong inclination to stay asleep.

Do we have any clarity about how our own words and actions may be causing suffering?

how can we train right now, not later, in feeding the right wolf?

Most of us have gotten so good at empowering our negativity and insisting on our rightness that the angry wolf gets shinier and shinier, and the other wolf is just there with its pleading eyes.

It’s not as though he goes through life untouched, with no sadness or remorse. But he doesn’t turn this into what we call “guilt,” or the shame that drags us down and makes us feel powerless to be there for ourselves or anybody else.