Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living (Shambhala Library) [Hardcover]

Pema Chodron (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 9, 2004 | Series: Shambhala Library

This is a beautiful, gift book edition (with a ribbon marker) of a modern-day classic. Start Where You Are is an indispensable handbook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart. With insight and humor, Pema Chödrön, author of The Wisdom of No Escape and When Things Fall Apart, presents down-to-earth guidance on how to make friends with ourselves and develop genuine compassion toward others. The author shows how we can "start where we are" by embracing rather than denying the painful aspects of our lives. Pema Chödrön frames her teachings on compassion around fifty-nine traditional Tibetan Buddhist maxims, or slogans, such as:

   •  "Always apply a joyful state of mind"
   •  "Don't seek others' pain as the limbs of your own happiness"
   •  "Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment"


Working with these slogans and through the practice of meditation, Start Where You Are shows how we can all develop the courage to work with our own inner pain and discover joy, well-being, and confidence.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pema Chodron is a Buddhist nun for regular folks. Having raised a family of her own, she doesn't shy away from persistent troubles and the basic meatiness of life. In fact, in Start Where You Are, Chodron tries to get us to see that the faults and foibles in each of us now are the perfect ingredients for creating a better life. No need to wait for a quieter time or a more settled mind. The trick Chodron says is to repattern ourselves, to transform bad habits into good by first opening ourselves to the groundlessness of existence. When the cliff dissolves beneath our feet, fear has a way of actually lessening. Fearlessness opens the way to recognizing our pushy egos and that rather than being cursed with original sin, we are blessed with an original soft spot--the squishy feeling inside that we all have, that is the seat of true compassion, and that we all do our best to armor over. Chodron is the kind of teacher who has seen it all and keeps pushing us back into ourselves until there's no one left to wrestle with but a certain recalcitrant image in the mirror. --Brian Bruya --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

"This book is about awakening the heart," writes the American Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chodron. "If you have every wondered how to awaken your genuine compassionate heart, this book will serve you as a guide." This is a broad and simple statement, and those unfamiliar with When Things Fall Apart or other titles by Chodron may rightfully fear that a volley of nonsensical fuzzballs is on the way. Good bedtime reading, perhaps, but in the decade since its original 1994 publication, there seems to be even less grounds to claim that all humans are innately capable of openness, clarity and compassion (or "bodhichitta"). What follows, however, is a savvy, down-to-earth contemporary version of an old Tibetan Buddhist technique for mind training, or "lojong," supported by instructions in basic sitting meditation practice (to cultivate tranquility and insight) and "tonglen"—a meditative technique that involves taking in the dark, heavy, negative emotions and sending out an attitude of light, compassionate embrace, a warm spaciousness, in its place. Chodron supplies a pithy contemporary analysis for each of 59 "slogans" that make up the teaching behind this practice. "There is a saying that is the underlying principle of tonglen and slogan practice: ‘Gain and victory to others, loss and defeat to myself,’" she writes. Far from being as masochistic as this may sound to Western ears, however, the aim is get people to unclench the heart and mind, to dare to taste defeat. Although far from easy, Chodron’s humane, incisive approach can help any sincere reader learn to relate to fear and pain and pleasure and joy in a way that will open their hearts to the richness of their own lives and all life.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala; 1St Edition edition (March 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590301420
• ISBN-13: 978-1590301425
• Product Dimensions: 4.5 x 0.8 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Alternative Medicine > Meditation
  • #94 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Eastern > Buddhism

More About the Author

Pema Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa. She is resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery in North America established for Westerners. She is also the author of many books and audiobooks, including the best-selling When Things Fall Apart and Don't Bite the Hook.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#56 in Books > Self-Help

#58 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

#62 in Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting

#63 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting

#97 in Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality

#56 in Books > Self-Help

#58 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

#62 in Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting

#63 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting

#97 in Kindle eBooks > Religion & Spirituality

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

149 of 158 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, insightful, useful December 26, 2000

By KTB VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I absolutely loved this book. I read it for a class about wisdom and of the 10 books we had to read I'm only keeping three; this is one. I didn't know anything about Buddhism before reading this and I don't feel that I need to be a Buddhist in order to benefit from Pema's insights. Her advice for living (taken right from lojong slogans from Buddhist traditions) can be taken on many different levels. I don't feel that you need to go deep into the practice in order to benefit from any of this books teachings. You take from it what you need to. I'm adding my voice to the many here who have praised her, Pema Chodron has written a wonderful, helpful book. If you're in pain emotionally I highly recommend it. If you just want to get some peace in your life I highly recommend it. Everyone needs help coping with living, even if it's just a little. Pema has given us a guide to one way of coping.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Start Where You Are Was my Bible March 3, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I highly recommend Start Where You Are for anyone who is serious about meditation practice and wants an earthy, no frills, no pretentions guide to compassionate living. Pema Chodron stresses that in order to act with compassion toward others, one must start with themselves, openning up that can of worms full of all the messy stuff that we would all rather not fess up to.

At a very difficult time in my life, I just kept starting at the beginning every time I finished reading it. I felt as if I knew Pema Chodron personally by reading her books. And having read everything of Chogyam Trungpa's that I could find prior, I had a strong grasp of the foundation from which she learned, but that is certainly not a prerequisite to benefiting from her teachings.

I would also strongly recommend her earlier book: The Wisdom of No Escape.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wondrous simplicity and clarity July 30, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Pema Chodron is a wonderful teacher, who shares time honored techniques of breathing in suffering and anger and breathing out compassion and love in a way that is so guileless and disarming that it is almost guaranteed to touch your heart.

This book works on many levels... I am not a 'serious practitioner,' by any means, but someone who goes to work every day and has to deal with many frustrations and stresses, but this book offers practical methods that help you deal with just these impediments in your life, so that you can be happier, and give more happiness to others.

I also sense that for someone who is more dedicated to making their life centered on spiritual practice, this book is a foundation for such a disciplined path as well.