Search Results for: Pema Chödrön – Page 1

Pema Chödrön: “Compassionate Abiding”

How do we find a sense of stability when everything seems so groundless? Pema Chödrön is celebrated around the world for her ability to help us turn toward things that are difficult and embrace our uncertainty. In this week’s podcast, Pema joins Tami to share her one-of-a-kind guidance, including a special practice she calls “compassionate abiding.” Tami and Pema also talk about how to stay embodied when panic arises, accessing the wisdom inherent in our emotions, and the importance of cultivating “unconditional friendship” and befriending even those parts of ourselves that we want to reject.

Pema Chödrön: Living with Vulnerability

Pema Chödrön is an American-born Buddhist nun who currently resides at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Her many publications include How to Meditate, Getting Unstuck, and Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better. This special episode of Insights at the Edge—originally broadcast as part of the Living with Vulnerability online program—features a deeply heartfelt conversation between Pema and Tami Simon. Here they discuss why it can feel so hard to live with your innermost self open to the world. Pema emphasizes that choosing to be vulnerable brings a more genuine and fulfilling experience of your daily life. Finally, Tami and Pema talk about listening to the inherent lessons of your emotions and why acceptance of the moment will open you to ever-greater opportunities for joy and enrichment.(66 minutes)

The Freedom to Choose Something Different with Pema Ch...

Ever feel triggered and stuck in a reactive tailspin despite all your efforts? It is from this place — this hooked feeling — that we find ourselves responding in less than ideal ways. These are the moments when we may speak with venom, act out, or completely shut down when faced with challenging situations.

It is only later, when we’ve had the opportunity to calm down and reflect on our actions, that we wonder where we went wrong and how we could have chosen a more grounded response.

In The Freedom to Choose Something Different, Pema Chödrön examines and illuminates this nebulous process, clearly identifying where and when you have the opportunity to change your habitual response patterns. . . to choose something different. In this eight-part video course, Pema personally walks you through the landscape of these internal thunderstorms and guides you through the tools to cultivate inner freedom.

Discover more in the FREE introduction to the Online Course.

An Evening with Pema Chödrön and k.d. lang

Bestselling author and beloved meditation teacher Pema Chödrön has touched the lives of millions with her down-to-earth guidance for becoming happier, “saner” people in an ever-changing and challenging world. Grammy®-winning recording artist and Buddhist practitioner k.d. lang has likewise been a source of inspiration worldwide through her music, songwriting, and soaring vocals.

Learn more and purchase tickets here!

An Evening with Pema Chödrön and k.d. lang is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join these two extraordinary women who are both uniquely gifted “instruments of the dharma,” helping us to soften and open our hearts. Moderated by Sounds True publisher and founder Tami Simon, this night of discovery and insight will support both The Pema Chödrön Foundation and Tools for Peace.

Our evening will begin with a dialogue with Pema Chödrön, who will share her insights into life’s “big questions”—including how we can begin to face uncertainty and engage the unknown—along with practical guidance in becoming more vulnerable, authentic, and present with ourselves and with each other. Then k.d. lang will join the conversation, speaking about her personal approach to creativity and the roles that trust, devotion, and surrender play in that process, the surprising parallels between the journeys of the artist and the meditator, and more.

Our evening concludes with a special musical performance by k.d. lang, who will offer a selection of songs with a piano accompaniment, buoyed by the incredible acoustics of Royce Hall.

Learn more and purchase tickets here!

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How to Meditate – with Pema Chödrön

When it comes to meditation, Pema Chödrön is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost teachers. Yet she’s never offered an introductory course on audio—until now.

On How to Meditate with Pema Chödrön, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun and bestselling author presents her first complete spoken-word course for those new to meditation.

Through traditional insights and her personal guidance, offered in 12 sitting sessions, Pema Chödrön will help you honestly meet and compassionately relate with your mind as you explore:

  • The basics of mindfulness awareness practice, from proper posture to learning to settle to breathing and relaxation
  • Gentleness, patience, and humor—three ingredients for a well-balanced practice
  • Shamatha (or calm abiding), the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises
  • Thoughts and emotions as “sheer delight”—instead of obstacles—in meditation

“From my own experience and from listening to many people over the years, I’ve tried to offer here what I feel are the essential points of meditation,” explains Pema Chödrön. Now this beloved voice shares with you her accessible approach—simple and down-to-earth while informed by the highest traditions of Tibetan Buddhism—on How to Meditate with Pema Chödrön.

In Conversation: Pema Chödrön and Alice Walker

What happens when a beloved spiritual teacher and a brilliant author come together to talk about the most tender, compelling aspects of our human experience? The following exchange, excerpted from Pema Chödrön and Alice Walker in Conversation, offers some unexpected answers—and an introduction to the healing practice that has transformed both women’s hearts and lives.

Alice Walker: About four years ago I was having a very difficult time. I had lost someone I loved deeply and nothing seemed to help. Then a friend sent me a tape set by Pema Chödrön called Awakening Compassion. I stayed in the country and I listened to you, Pema ,every night for the next year. I studied lojong mind training, and I practicedtonglen. It was tonglen, the practice of taking in people’s pain and sending out whatever you have that is positive that helped me through this difficult passage.

I want to thank you so much and to ask you a question. In my experience suffering is perennial; there is always suffering. But does suffering really have a use? I used to think there was no use to it, but now I think that there is.

Pema Chödrön: Is there any use in suffering? I think the reason I am so taken by these teachings is that they are based on using suffering as good medicine. It’s as if there’s a moment of suffering that occurs over and over and over again in every human life. What usually happens in that moment is that it hardens us; it hardens the heart because we don’t want any more pain.

But the lojong teachings say we can take that very moment and flip it. The very thing that causes us to harden and our suffering to intensify can soften us and make us more decent and kinder people. That takes a lot of courage. This is a teaching for people who are willing to cultivate their courage.

What’s wonderful about it is that you have plenty of material to work with. If you’re waiting for only the high points to work with, you might give up, but there’s an endless succession of suffering.

Alice Walker: I was surprised how the heart literally responds to this practice. You can feel it responding physically. As you breathe in what is difficult to bear, there is initial resistance, which is the fear, the constriction. That’s the time when you really have to be brave. But if you keep going and doing the practice, the heart actually relaxes. That is quite amazing to feel.

Pema Chödrön: When we start out on a spiritual path, we often have ideals we think we’re supposed to live up to. We feel we’re supposed to be better than we are in some way. But with this practice you take yourself completely as you are. Then ironically, taking in pain—breathing it in for yourself and all others in the same boat as you are—heightens your awareness of exactly where you’re stuck. Instead of feeling you need some magic makeover so you can suddenly become some great person, there’s much more emotional honesty about where you’re stuck.

Alice Walker: I remember the day I really got it that we’re not connected as human beings because of our perfection, but because of our flaws. That was such a relief.

Pema Chödrön: Rumi wrote a poem called “Night Travelers.” It’s about how all the darkness of human beings is a shared thing from the beginning of time, and how understanding that opens up your heart and opens up your world. You begin to think bigger. Rather than depressing you, it makes you feel part of the whole.

Alice Walker: … Everybody is in that boat sooner or later, in one form or other. It’s good to feel that you’re not alone.

Pema Chödrön: I want to ask you about joy. It’s all very well to talk about breathing in the suffering and sending out relief and so forth, but did you find any joy coming out of this practice?

Alice Walker: Oh, yes! Even just not being so miserable. Part of the joyousness was knowing we have help. It was great to know that this wisdom is so old. That means people have had this pain for a long time; they’ve been dealing with it, and they had the foresight to leave these practices for us to use. I’m always supported by spirits and ancestors and people in my tribe, whomever they’ve been and however long ago they lived. So it was like having another tribe of people, of ancestors, come to the rescue with this wisdom that came through you and your way of teaching.

Pema Chödrön: I think the times are ripe for this kind of teaching.

Alice Walker: Oh, I think it’s just the right medicine for today. You know, the other really joyous thing is that I feel more open, I feel more openness toward people in my world. It’s what you have said about feeling more at home in your world. I think this is the result of going the distance in your own heart—really being disciplined about opening your heart as much as you can.

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