Showing results by author "Pema Chodron" in All Categories

With war and violence flaring all over the world, many of us are left feeling vulnerable and utterly helpless. In this book Pema Chödrön draws on Buddhist teachings to explore the origins of aggression, hatred, and war, explaining that they lie nowhere but within our own hearts and minds. She goes on to explain that the way in which we as individuals respond to challenges in our everyday lives can either perpetuate a culture of violence or create a new culture of compassion.

When her granddaughter was accepted to Naropa University, the celebrated author Pema Chödrön promised that she'd speak at the commencement ceremony. Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better contains the wisdom shared on that day. "What do we do when life doesn't go the way we hoped?" begins Pema. "We say 'I'm a failure.'" But what if failing wasn't just "okay"... but the most direct way to becoming a more complete, loving, and fulfilled human being?

Where will we look when we are afraid? How do we find strength? In what can we place our trust? According to Tibetan Buddhism, there are four noble aspirations, known as the Four Great Catalysts of Awakening, which we can call on to cultivate strength and openness in any situation. From Fear to Fearlessnessbrings us into the company of beloved teacher Pema Chödrön to discover and cultivate these four immeasurables: maitri (loving-kindness), compassion, joy, and equanimity.

In her first new book of spiritual teachings in over seven years, Pema Chödrön offers a combination of wisdom, heartfelt reflections, and the signature mix of humor and insight that have made her a beloved figure to turn to during times of change. In an increasingly polarized world, Pema shows us how to strengthen our abilities to find common ground, even when we disagree, and influence our environment in positive ways.

Beloved Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön has a unique gift for helping those of all faiths to work with their most difficult inner and outer challenges. In this supportive series of talks, listeners will join her at her best - showing us the way back to our wisest and most heartful selves. Here, Pema shares three simple, time-honored steps to practice when we are in pain or crisis.

Pema Chödrön presents her first live talk on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. With Embracing the Unknown, she reveals how one of Buddhism’s most revered texts contains essential guidance not only for understanding the mysteries of life, death, and rebirth - but also profound wisdom for living fearlessly in “the bardo of this life”. Experience one of today’s most beloved spiritual teachers at her best as she helps us navigate fear, doubt, and uncertainty with a compassionate and open heart.

We live in difficult times. Life so often seems like a turbulent river threatening to drown us and destroy our world. Why, then, shouldn’t we cling to the certainty of the comfortable - to our deep-seated habits and familiar ways? Because, Pema Chödrön teaches, that kind of fear-based clinging keeps us from the infinitely more powerful experience of being fully alive.

Start Where You Are is an indispensable audiobook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart. With insight and humor, Pema Chödrön offers guidance on how we can accept our flaws and embrace ourselves wholeheartedly as a prerequisite for developing compassion.

Here Pema provides the tools to deal with the problems and difficulties that life throws our way. This wisdom is always available to us, she teaches, but we usually block it with habitual patterns rooted in fear. Beyond that fear lies a state of openheartedness and tenderness. This audiobook teaches us how to awaken our basic goodness and connect with others, to accept ourselves and others complete with faults and imperfections, and to stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is.

It’s true, as they say, that we can only love others when we first love ourselves and we can only experience real joy when we stop running from pain. The key to understanding these truisms lies in remaining open to life in all circumstances, and here Pema Chödrön shows us how. Because when we embrace the happiness and suffering, intelligence and confusion that are a natural part of life, we can begin to discover a wellspring of courageous love within our hearts.

Life has a way of provoking us with traffic jams and computer malfunctions, with emotionally distant partners and crying children—and before we know it, we're upset. We feel terrible, and then we end up saying and doing things that only make matters worse. But it doesn't have to be that way, says Pema Chödrön. It is possible to relate constructively to the inevitable shocks, losses, and frustrations of life so that we can find true happiness. The key, Pema explains, is not biting the "hook" of our habitual responses.

Have you ever wanted to love and connect with others more deeply... but felt that you could use a little help shedding your "emotional armor" and opening your heart? With Awakening Love, Pema Chodron invites you to start wherever you are, amid any and all of the challenges, frustrations, or fears you may be facing, and to use them as the starting place to awaken the natural and boundless capacity to give and receive love more fully.

In The Meditation Summit: Volume II, Sounds True publisher and founder Tami Simon speaks with 10 leading meditation teachers about their personal understanding of this practice - each with a complete guided meditation. Practitioners of all levels will benefit from the abundance of insight and guidance provided by these diverse voices.

What would happen if we looked with fresh eyes at the struggles and "impossible situations" that we face every day - and found there four gifts that changed everything? For decades, Pema Chödrön has brought clarity and heart to the core teachings of the Buddha, helping to make them relevant and useful in our everyday lives. With The Truth of Our Existence, she immerses us in one of Buddhism’s essential distillations of written wisdom known as The Four Marks of Existence.

Compassion is a skill. It's not a special trait that we either have or don't, but a practice that we can all nurture in our daily lives. And the benefits are vast. It liberates our hearts from a narrow sense of self, expands our sense of well-being, and so much more. Of course, it's not always easy. But when we learn to work with our adversities and fears, whatever it is that might be keeping us stuck, then we find that we gradually and naturally become more open, joyful, and free.

What if the full sense of our aliveness were only to be found amidst our most challenging times and difficult experiences? In pain and crisis, teaches Pema Chödrön, there lies a hidden doorway to freedom that appears to us only when we're sure that there is no way out. In these intimate audio learning sessions, Pema Chödrön helps us distinguish the triggers or external events that we blame for our suffering from the deeper habitual patterns that feed our anger, fear, or sadness.

Pain, loss, shame, sadness - suffering is an unavoidable part of being human. The practice of tonglen offers us a way to transform our relationship with suffering - our own and that which is all around us. In The Courage to Love the World, beloved teacher Pema Chödrön shares insightful and heartfelt stories about tonglen, along with direct instruction and guided practice.

Learn how to use the gift of pain with Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. She teaches that it is in suffering where you will find the seeds of your awakening and that vulnerability is actually your greatest spiritual resource. You'll learn how to create your own spiritual retreat, the key teachings necessary for cultivating your own "soft spot" - the gateway to your own noble heart, the promise of the Four Limitless Ones, and the teachings on the Six Paramitas: the Buddha's own map of the journey to enlightenment. This program was recorded within the peaceful shrine room of Gampo Abbey, Chödrön's home on the cliffs of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

We all have fears, but when we look closely at them, we discover that behind each fear resides a basic fear of ourselves. We're afraid to look at our habitual styles of thinking and behaving because we might not always like what we see. Ironically it is this fear of honest self-reflection that keeps us trapped in patterns of stress and discontentment. Here is a vision for moving beyond this most basic fear to discover the innate bravery, trust, and joy that reside at the core of our being.

You can't get away from suffering. That's the good news, teaches Pema Chodron. For at the core of your most painful experiences, you will find the seeds of your awakening. On Noble Heart, this best-selling author and Tibetan Buddhist nun shows you how vulnerability is our greatest spiritual resource amid life's difficulties. Using special meditations and teachings, she shows how to cultivate your own noble heart, one that sheds its armor, and opens fearlessly to both heartache and delight.