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125 of 127 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Be. Here. Now., November 16, 2002
This review is from: The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Hardcover)
In the current age of anxiety, Pema Chödrön is both a refreshing and challenging voice. Basically, she encourages us to see problems as spiritual opportunities. Instead of trying to run from discomfort, she advocates staying put and learning about ourselves. Instead of habitually reaching for whatever palliative gives relief -- always temporary -- she suggests feeling and observing our discomforts, becoming more fully present in our lives, learning how to be truly here now. Only through this process, she says, can we experience the deep joy of being alive. This is a great companion volume to her book "When Things Fall Apart." It elaborates on themes introduced there, describing several practices of Tibetan Buddhism, some ancient and long forgotten, which help us not only cope with anxiety but use it to overcome fearfulness. This is an important spiritual effort because while we typically think of hate as the enemy of love, it is really fear that makes love difficult. Fear immobilizes us, makes us pull the covers over our heads, and isolates us from others. Chödrön, a student of Chögyam Trungpa, encourages the consistent practice of meditation. And she discounts the usual results-driven expectations people associate with it, pointing out that as we confront our true selves in meditation, it often becomes more and more difficult, not easier. And for those who have found meditation fiercely frustrating, as I have, she has alternatives. The practice of "tonglen" is one simple spiritual ritual that can be done anywhere, anytime, providing a dramatic and freeing shift in emotional perspective. Learning not to let disappointment, anger, and hurt trigger our personal melodramas, which sap our energy, we can find our way to greater equanimity and become a less destructive presence in the world. I strongly recommend this book as a welcome spiritual tonic in troubled times, whether that trouble originates elsewhere or from within. As with her other books, you can read and reread it, each time discovering much to learn and reflect on -- and in her words, "this is news you can use."
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112 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Profound, practical guide to attaining wisdom, April 20, 2002
This review is from: The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Hardcover)
I've read this book three times in two weeks. I read so many books about wisdom. The Four Agreements (not so good), meditation by Jack Kornfeld books, Nietzche, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. I've read Pema Chodron's previous books, and those didn't speak to me as deeply as this one does. I don't read just to pass the time. I read to find wisdom. This book contains deep wisdom. The author lays out ways to analyze ourselves, our emotions and our thoughts. She discusses how we as humans react to our thoughts and pain. Her book analyzes the causes and roots of suffering. She then asks "why do must people suffer in such a similar way?". Decades of acquired wisdom are then offered. The causes and roots of suffering are our fleeing from pain, running for comfort. Fleeing without knowing why, fleeing without knowing where we are going. The descriptions of human behaivor are spot on accurate. This describes so many Western philosophers, political reformers, talented artists, and many people who are looking to find 'the one true way'. After laying out the causes of suffering, she distills her understanding of human behaivor, and gives us ways to approach these problems. Practical, approachable ways that you can build on over time. This isn't a set of principles of "Look at the world with happiness, and you too will be happy", or a collection of trite sayings to convince yourself "You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you". Slogans don't allow us to analyze and understand the root causes of our pain and suffering. This book lays out those causes. And it lays out ways we can study suffering, and use our efforts to transform our lives from unsure, troubled beings to people who have a firm grasp of themselves. This self understanding leads to lots of confidence. And she uses a scientific method for this analysis. There are two books i read over and over. "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", which i've been learning from regularly for 4 years. And now this one. Suzuki Roshi said 'We are always looking for something, without knowing what we are doing'. We are looking for happiness. This book studies what is happiness, what is suffering, why is it so temporal, and what can i do about attaining it. And it helps us understand what we are doing. May you benefit from this wisdom as much as I have.
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work."
--James Randi
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167 of 177 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"May we lead the life of a warrior.", August 25, 2001
This review is from: The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Hardcover)
"I offer this guide on the training of the compassionate warrior," Pema Chodron writes in the Prologue of her newest book. "May it help move us toward the places that scare us. May it inform our lives and help us to die with no regrets" (p. 2). Chodron is a Buddhist nun, and the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Chogyam Trungpa was her teacher. When Chodron was about six years old, an old woman told her, "Little girl, don't you go letting life harden your heart" (p. 3). Chodron offers this "pith instruction" as the central teaching of her this book. She writes, "we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice" (p. 3).
Chodron quotes Albert Einstein, who observed "a human being . . . experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty" (p. 9). To escape this prison, Chodron encourages us to live life with an enlightened heart and mind ("bodhichitta"), and by analogy, with the "rawness of a broken heart" (p. 4). "This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we're arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all" (p. 4). "Each of us has a variety of habitual tactics for avoiding life as it is" (p. 15), Chodron writes. She teaches us that through the heart practices of sitting meditation (the "natural seat" and "home ground" of bodhichitta training, p. 23), loving-kindness, compassion, tonglen, joy, and equanimity, wherever we are, we can train as a bodhichitta warrior. "Bodhisattva training encourages us to have a passionate involvement with life," Chodron says, "regarding no emotion or action as unworthy of our love and compassion, regarding no person or situation as unacceptable" (p. 115).
"Warriors-in-training need someone to guide them," Chodron says, "a master warrior, a teacher, a spiritual friend, someone who knows the territory well and can help them find their way" (p. 113). For some people, reading this book along with Chodron's previous books, START WHERE YOU ARE and WHEN THINGS FALL APART, may be enough. Chodron is a wise teacher. Rather than praising these three books all day, I'll conclude by saying this book is sure to become one of the most trusted dharma resources on my bookshelf.
G. Merritt
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