• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Luminary Quotes

Luminary Quotes

  • Share
  • Subscribe
  • Topics
  • Themes
  • Favorite

Search Quotes >
Share this quote
previous

At the bottom, we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

Pema Chödrön

next
  • Share
  • Subscribe
  • Topics
  • Themes
  • Favorite

Search Quotes >

The Love That Will Not Die

Topic: Love, Compassion, & Kindness

At our pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom, we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown on July 14, 1936, in New York City, grew up on a farm in New Jersey. She attended Miss Porter's School before earning a degree in English literature from Sarah Lawrence College and a master’s in elementary education from the University of California, Berkeley. She married at 21 and had two children before experiencing two divorces. Her spiritual journey led her to study Buddhism with Lama Chime Rinpoche in London and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the United States. In 1974, she was ordained as a novice nun by the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, and in 1981, became the first American woman fully ordained in the Vajrayana tradition.

Chödrön played a key role in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. In the early 1980s, Trungpa Rinpoche appointed her director of the Boulder Shambhala Center in Colorado. She later moved to Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in North America for Western students, becoming its director in 1986. Recognized as an acharya (senior teacher) in 1993, she continued teaching despite health challenges, including chronic fatigue syndrome. Her books, such as When Things Fall Apart (1996) and No Time to Lose (2005), explore resilience, mindfulness, and compassion, emphasizing shenpa, the habitual grasping that leads to suffering.

In 2020, Chödrön retired from her role as acharya within Shambhala International, citing concerns over the organization’s direction. She continues to teach, lead retreats, and study with her teacher, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. Recognized for her contributions to Buddhist practice, she received the Global Bhikkhuni Award in 2016. Though she stepped back from institutional leadership, she remains a guiding voice in contemporary Buddhism, emphasizing the power of mindfulness and compassion in daily life.

(1936―) Buddhism
When Things Fall Apart

Chodron, Pema. When Things Fall Apart. Shambhala, 1997 [Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times] pp. 91-92.

Pema Chödrön


Theme: Love

About This Pema Chödrön Quotation [Commentary]

Pema Chödrön describes a path of descent marked not by haste or struggle, but by steadiness and presence. “At our pace, without speed or aggression,” she writes, “we move down and down and down.” This inward journey is not one we take alone. She continues, “With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear.” These words root the process of awakening in shared human experience. Fear, rather than a barrier, becomes the ground from which we move together, slowly and deliberately.

At the bottom of this descent, something unexpected is revealed: “we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta.” Bodhichitta, often understood as the awakened heart, is not found apart from suffering, but at the very point where fear and tenderness meet. In Pema Chödrön’s language, it is “right down there in the thick of things”—not outside of difficulty, but within it—that this healing arises. The water image suggests quiet nourishment, something that flows and restores, uncovered not by resisting pain, but by staying present to it.

The journey concludes not in despair, but in recognition: “we discover the love that will not die.” This is not a love created or earned—it is revealed. It remains even in the most difficult places, untouched by conditions. Pema Chödrön’s words do not separate spiritual insight from ordinary life. Instead, she brings attention to what already exists at the center of things. In the company of others and through our shared descent, we find a love that endures and heals, the steady presence of bodhichitta.

On Being with Krista Tippett: Devendra Banhart ‘When Things Fall Apart’ [Excerpt]

Tippett: So maybe I’ll read a few of these parts from “When Things Fall Apart,” just because I just want to read them and see if they—they struck me, when I was getting ready. “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.”

A little bit later on, she says, “The only time we ever know what’s really going on … the only time we ever know what’s really going on—is when the rug’s been pulled out and we can’t find anywhere to land. We use these situations either to wake ourselves up or to put ourselves to sleep. Right now — in the very instant of groundlessness—is the seed of taking care of those who need our care and of discovering our goodness.”

Banhart: Amen. [laughs] That passage is perfect. Perfect.

And there’s also something really, really hopeful, in that when you initially read, “Things come together, and they fall apart,” there’s that sorrow—“No, I don’t want it to fall apart. I want to hold onto that good thing.” But then look at it inversely, and it’s like, this time will pass. This is gonna fall apart, too; this thing we’re going through, this pandemic, it will fall apart.

Tippett: [laughs] The falling apart will fall apart, too.

Banhart: So that’s nice. We can embrace, we can celebrate that, because it’s a fact. Things fall apart. [laughs]

Tippett: This is, in my version, these are the last two paragraphs of the “The Love That Will Not Die” chapter.

Would you—I would just love to hear you read these two paragraphs.

Banhart: Of course. “Spiritual awakening is frequently described as a journey to the top of a mountain. We leave our attachments and our worldliness behind and slowly make our way to the top. At the peak we have transcended all pain. The only problem with this metaphor is that we leave all the others behind—our drunken brother, our schizophrenic sister, our tormented animals and friends. Their suffering continues, unrelieved by our personal escape.

“In the process of discovering bodhichitta, the journey goes down, not up. It’s as if the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.”

Tippett: Devendra Banhart is a singer-songwriter and visual artist. He’s released ten albums including Rejoicing in the Hands, and most recently, Ma.

Resources

  • On Being with Krista Tippett Devendra Banhart ‘When Things Fall Apart’, May 7, 2020
  • When Things Fall Apart Heart Advice for Difficult Times By Pema Chodron

Related Quotes

  • God Hugs You - Hildegard of Bingen, Book of Divine Works
  • Awakens Your Love - Saint Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle
  • The Glowing Kingdom of Your Love - Paramahansa Yogananda, The Art of Gaining Friends
  • Love At Last - Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
  • The Love That Will Not Die - Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart
  • The Language of Love - Eknath Easwaran, Seeing with the Eyes of Love
  • Love Alone - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man
  • Dear Child of God - Desmond Tutu, God Has A Dream
  • Only By Love - Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Copyright © 2017 – 2025 LuminaryQuotes.com About Us