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Excerpt
Pema Chodron
Shambhala Collection

Giving Our Best with Pema Chodron Excerpt - Part Two

We are pleased to bring you part two of the excerpt from Giving Our Best with Pema Chodron.  To continue with this recorded retreat, Pema Chödrön continues to focus on the enlightened heart and mind.  By nurturing a compassionate attitude in our hearts, we can naturally become more open and present to others and free in our lives, even amidst life’s adversities and fears. 

The Buddha’s don’t need our veneration. They don’t need our bows, and they don’t need our water bowls filled with roses, and they don’t need statues and paintings, and candles, and so forth. We do it actually to become open and receptive and humbled so that we might be able to hear something.  So, anyone sitting here who is saying my husband or wife dragged me to this, and I can’t wait till this talk is over so I can go outside, as I’m talking here, is thinking about what you’re going to do when you go home or how stupid this whole thing is or anything where the analogy often is like a pot with a lid on it.


It's like when you’re trying to pour the teachings in but you can’t, or sometimes they say it’s like a pot with spoiled food in the bottom.  So you pour in something fresh but it all gets soured or it's a pot with a hole in the bottom; it just goes right out.  So, these teachings are to this veneration and also the second verse is to make the listener and the speaker as well, in this case the writer, Shantideva, soften and open so that something can be received and can be of benefit. So, as you listen, there is a lot of instructions on how you might be free of suffering and the cause of suffering, but if you don’t listen, too bad for you.

 

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Pema Chodron Collection