Customer Reviews

Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness

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"Each of us has all that it takes to become fully enlightened," Pema Chodron writes in this book. "We have basic energy coursing through us. Sometimes it manifests as brilliance and sometimes it manifests as confusion" (p. 22). Chodron's 108-page book is based on a series of "talks" she delivered in the spring of 1989 at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia founded by Chodron's teacher, Chogyam Trungpa. "The message . . . for the reader," Chodron writes in the book's Preface, "is to be with oneself without embarrassment or harshness. This is instruction on how to love oneself and one's world" (p. x).

This book is nothing less than liberating. It offers the power to awaken your heart, and the power to awaken your courage. "Working with obstacles is life's journey" (p. 68) Chodron tells us. "The purpose of your whole life is not to make a lot of money, it's not to find the perfect marriage, it's not to build Gampo Abbey. It's not to do any of these things. You have a certain life, and whatever life you're in is a vehicle for waking up. If you're a mother raising your children, that's the vehicle for waking up. If you're an actress, that's the vehicle for waking up. If you're a construction worker, that's the vehicle for waking up. If you're a retired person facing old age, that's the vehicle for waking up. If you're alone and you feel lonely and you wish you had a mate, that's the vehicle for waking up. If you have a huge family around you and you wish you had a little more free time, that's the vehicle for waking up. Whatever you have, that's it" (p. 71).

Written before her perhaps better known books, this may be my favorite Pema Chodron title. I have returned to it many times since it was first published in 1991. This is a good dharma book, written with Chodron's characteristic wisdom and clarity.

G. Merritt

This book came to me after suffering a severe Gout attack. My life was a mess, manifesting itself in my poor dietary habits. After limping home from the hospital, I scanned my bookshelves for something to read, as I convalesced. The Wisdom of No Escape sat on my bookshelf for a few years. Everytime I would see the title, I'd think, "sounds depressing". Well, it's not. It is a very honest and straight forward guide book for the human creature. It basically tells you that life is hard and it's that hardness that makes it worth living. I also got the impression that the author believes that Heaven and Hell and reincarnation are all part of everyone's daily experience. Everytime something repeats itself in your life, you are experiencing a living reincarnation. The key seems to be in keeping it all new and fresh.

This was the first Pema Chodron book I'd ever read and it was transforming! I was familiar with Buddhist teachings prior to reading this, but found that her book made those sometimes complex teachings very accessible. Don't be scared off if you're not Buddhist, however. The principles here give one a different perspective on life--it's a psychological approach rather than a religious approach. Pema Chodron's THE WISDOM OF NO ESCAPE gave me an excitement about exploring my inner world and helped me to see that wherever I'm at in life is okay--I don't have to struggle against the process of Life. It's a book I've returned to time and again.

i have read many books on spirituality over the years, and this has been one of my top two that most memorably changed my life. (the other one being 'autobiography of a yogi'. it is not that others have not shaped me, but this one was a dramatic shift in thinking for me. i have referred several people to it, quoted from it at times, and would love to see this being read by more, and it is already fairly well known and is in a new cover.

i call pema the goddess of hard times. this book for me was everything i wished that 'when things fall apart' would have been for me. thankfully i didn't stop at that book, and found this one. when things fall apart was forgettable for me. this one was my favorite, and 'start where you are' i found to be good, but i don't seem to quote from it, nor have the fond memories like i do of wisdom of no escape.

pema is a great asset to buddhists and people all around the world seeking more compassion and a greater sense of humanity in their souls. this book is her greatest work as far as i am concerned. well worth a read, well worth 'practicing' not just reading. the concepts are best experienced, not just intellectualized. intellectually they are counter intuitive, and a few friends have reacted without really getting the essence of it which is the practice and inner transformation available.

I found this book to be very clearly written in plain english on a topic that could easily become obscured by its own sublety. My favourite chapter is the one on precision, gentleness and letting go. The idea of hard discipline that I had previously associated with Buddhism evaporated as I read it. I really wanted to buy a 100 copies and send them to all the people I care about! I think its a great book and an excellent text for anyone learning to be gentle with themselves and others.

This book is a collection of talks given during a month-long meditation retreat, by an American teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. She emphasizes the cultivation of loving-kindness toward everything, including ourselves and our busy, crazy brains.

When I picked this book up a number of years ago, the first sentence was just what I needed to hear: "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."

(I also highly recommend "The Myth of Freedom" and "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" by Chodron's teacher, Chogyam Trungpa.)

The Wisdom of No Escape was my first introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. I found it by chance at a time of my life when it had become ludicrously clear that there was NO escape from human frailty. It makes one feel much better about that fact.

Great book

Pema Chodron has a wonderful way of making the complex seem simple. In a gentle, non-parochial, non-confrontational manner, the author transmits, explains, and supports basic Buddhist principles so as to make them understandable to Westerners not versed in Tibetan assumptions, cosmologies, mythologies, etc. For example, her explication of Tonglen (sending and receiving) is presented in relation not only to Bodhicitta (universal compassion) but also in terms of personal development, mindfulness and presence, and acceptance of life's challenges as challenges (not restrictions or compulsions). Her chapter on renunciation is a classic as are other of her talks to her month-long meditation retreat class (which totally comprise this volume). It's difficult to escape the comprehensive wisdom of this book. It's one of her best which is saying a lot.

This is a wonderful set of short lectures that Pema Chodron gave to a group of meditation students that stayed for a month at the Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia where she is a resident teacher. The lectures are to the point, deal with anger, addiction, fear, joy, and all the many problems we are faced with not only daily, but constatly in our minds, whether we are aware of them or not. She gives techniques to understand what it is that fills our minds and often poisons our hearts, how to label them so that ultimately we may move past these problems with compassion, understanding and ultimately help put ourselves at ease. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in meditation and/or are suffering from anger, addiction (to anything- shopping, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, love, etc...), or just seek more interpersonal peace.

This is the best book from any spiritual tradition that I've ever read, especially as it applies to everyday life. It brought me kindness, joy, and enormous inspiration, entirely without judgment. Pema Chodron believes we are all essentially good people, here to offer kindness to ourselves and others as a way of life. She invites us to learn to open to ever more challenging situations as a way of living life more fully, and she shows us how. She guides us to focus not on perfection, but the beauty of life lived just as it is. Pema Chodron is a great teacher and role model, and I am deeply grateful to her for writing this book. I will read it again and again.