This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal… If you understand life you need a reality check… If you want to achieve your objectives, you have to be prepared for a daily dose of pain or discomfort. At first, it's unpleasant and demotivating, but in time you come to realize that it’s part of the process of feeling good, and the moment arrives when, if you don't feel pain, you have a sense that the exercises aren't having the desired effect… In order to have faith in his own path, a warrior does not need to prove that someone else's path is wrong… In order for us to liberate the energy of our strength, our weakness must first have a chance to reveal itself.
Adventure | Chance | Energy | Faith | Life | Life | Need | Order | Pain | Reality | Sense | Time | Weakness | Think | Understand |
Do not get used to it because it is easy to become a habit, it is a powerful drug. It is in the everyday life of us, in the suffering that we try to cover it, the sacrifices we make, blaming love for the breakup of their dreams. The pain was terrible when it displays its true face, but it temptation, appealing as it is disguised as a sacrifice or self-denial or cowardice. However, the more denial, as we found a way to exist with it, with the courtship of it and turn it into a part of our lives. I do not believe it. No one wants to suffer at all. If I think I could live without pain, that would be a big step, but do not imagine that others will understand me. Yes, the truth is that no one wants to suffer, even those who are still looking for pain and sacrifice there, but they feel they are reasonable, clearly there, and they are receiving the respect of human so, husbands, neighbors, and even God. Now we do not think about it anymore; everything you need to know is how to control this world spinning, not a journey in search of pleasure, but forget their sacrifice for all, that's important. There must a soldier participating in war is to kill the enemy or not? No, he left to sacrifice for the fatherland. Having a wife wants her husband to find himself not happy how? No, she wants her husband saw how sincere she endured as to how to make him happy. There must be a husband to do because they think he will find the fully meet individual needs in the workplace? No, he's brought the sweat and tears of the fine in exchange for peace to the family. And so life there are boys abandon their dreams to please their parents, parents give their lives for their children; pain and suffering are used to justify a bring only joy: love.
Boys | Control | Dreams | Enemy | Happy | Husband | Individual | Journey | Justify | Kill | Life | Life | Love | Need | Pain | Parents | Peace | Respect | Sacrifice | Search | Self-denial | Suffering | Tears | Truth | Wants | War | Wife | Will | World | Respect | Think | Understand |
The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here.
Desire | Extreme | Important | Love | Man | Pain | People | Revenge | Old | Understand |
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
There is a common misunderstanding among the human beings who have ever been born on earth that the best way to live is to try to avoid pain and just try to get comfortable. You see this even in insects and animals and birds. All of us are the same. A much more interesting, kind and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our curiosity is bitter or sweet. To lead to a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is. If we are committed to comfort at any cost, as soon as we come up against the least edge of pain, we’re going to run; we’ll never know what’s beyond that particular barrier or wall or fearful thing.
Comfort | Curiosity | Earth | Life | Life | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Prejudice | World |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.
Meditation | Pain | Relationship |
God knows that we are all artists of life. One day, he gives us a hammer with which to make sculptures, another day he gives us brushes and paints with which to make a picture, or paper and a pencil to write with. But you cannot make a painting with a hammer, or a sculpture with a paintbrush. Therefore, however difficult it may be, I must accept today's small blessings, even if they seem like curses because I am suffering and it's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and the children are singing in the street. This is the only way I will manage to leave my pain behind and rebuild my life.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
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. To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is, how we tick and how our world ticks, how the whole thing just is.
Inquisitiveness | Life | Life | Object | Pain | Pleasure | Prejudice | World |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under our feet. For instance, if what we're feeling is rage, we usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to it. One is to blame others. Lay it all on somebody else; drive all blames into everyone else. The other alternative is to feel guilty about our rage and blame ourselves.
Ability | Blame | Compassion | Heart | Pain | Rage | Words | Guilty |
We refuse to look at life as a great adventure that has no limits… We pretend to be strong because we are weak… We show our strength, so that no one can see our frailty. That is why, whenever you judge your brother, be aware that it is you who is in the dock… We should never condemn the lives of others, because everyone knows how great the pain and sacrifice him. One has to think you found the right path, quite another to think your way is the only option… There is no tragedy, only the unavoidable. Everything has its reason for being: you only need to distinguish what is temporary from what is lasting… There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.
Adventure | Desire | Distinguish | Life | Life | Mission | Need | Pain | Reason | Right | Sacrifice | Soul | Truth | Think |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
We feel we're supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain - breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are - heightens your awareness of exactly where you're stuck.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
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.
The only power you have on this planet is the power of your decisions… The optimist and the pessimist both die in the end, but each lives his life in a completely different way… The pain of yesterday is the strength of today… The past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning… The two toughest tests on the spiritual path are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage to not disappoint us with what we find… The universe always helps us in the fight for our dreams, as crazy as they may be. Because they are our dreams, and we even know how much trouble it costs us to dream them… The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.
Courage | Dreams | Feelings | Future | Life | Life | Pain | Past | Patience | Power | Right | Sense | Soul | Strength | Universe | Trouble |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.
Energy | Enough | Important | Knowing | Life | Life | Need | Pain | Right | Sense |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips 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 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 away from being fully awake. Looking at ourselves this way is very different from our usual habit. From this perspective we don’t need to change: you can feel as wretched as you like, and you’re still a good candidate for enlightenment. You can feel like the world’s most hopeless basket case, but that feeling is your wealth, not something to be thrown out or improved upon. There’s a richness to all of the smelly stuff that we so dislike, and so little desire. The delightful things–what we love so dearly about ourselves, the places in which we feel some sense of pride or inspiration–these also are our wealth. Only to the degree that we’ve gotten to know our personal pain, only to the degree that we’ve related with pain at all, will we be fearless enough, brave enough, and enough of a warrior to be willing to feel the pain of others. To that degree we will be able to take on the pain of others because we will have discovered that their pain and our pain are not different.
Enough | Good | Jealousy | Little | Love | Need | Pain | Pride | Right | Sense | Time | Will |
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought… Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then — as I am listening now.
Pain is pain, and the importance of preventing unnecessary pain and suffering does not diminish because the being that suffers is not a member of our own species.
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
Pain (any pain--emotional, physical, mental) has a message. The information it has about our life can be remarkably specific, but it usually falls into one of two categories: We would be more alive if we did more of this and Life would be more lovely if we did less of that. Once we get the pain's message, and follow its advice, the pain goes away.
The nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed - as a robot might be artificially constructed - to mimic the pain behavior of humans. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects of survival... it is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.
Behavior | Capacity | Circumstances | Pain |
Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pain of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals.