The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)

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We must allow ourselves to feel what we feel and not push it away. This means accepting every aspect of ourselves, even the parts we don’t like. Pema seems very focused on suffering and becoming okay with it. In many ways, there's a lot of great advice. I just personally felt she focused a bit too much on getting your mental state right with suffering, as opposed to actually working towards fixing the aspects of your life that cause you to suffer. I think there's a push and pull. On the one hand, you need mental resilience and acceptance to live through the pain life puts your through, but on the other hand, I think it's incredibly important to take life by the reins and change the things that make you unhappy. Pema seems much more focused on the first, and not at all focused on the second. She is a very privileged woman who's been able to travel the world and study with monks around the globe. There isn't anything wrong with that, but sometimes I feel like she doesn't really get what life is like for a lot of people. Life is both glorious and wretched. Wretchedness softens us up considerably. "Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.”

Pema tells us that we already have everything we need and are “one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.”Ani Pema first met her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Trungpa, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong. A collection of short inspirational readings by “one of the world’s wisest women”– O, the Oprah Magazine. What is different about her writings is that she writes not as though she is enlightened but a person just like us with everyday problems and negative feelings.

She attended Miss Porter's School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. Pema has two children and three grandchildren. Pema first met her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Rinpoche, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong. In cultivating loving-kindness, we train first to be honest, loving and compassionate toward ourselves.” Yet I don't feel like she is talking down to me like I get the feeling with some Christian authors. I feel like she is merely pointing out a way up. Like she is clearing the path for me so to speak. Her view on things will really make you think. For example, I feel like I am generally a great person at this point in my life. I try and be all zen and stuff and look for the good in people and all of that. Yet reading some of her teachings, I realize how far I have to go. I think I am ALMOST enlightened then BAM I look up and it is miles and miles away.As we train in opening our hearts, “we gradually feel more joy, the joy that comes from a growing appreciation of our basic goodness”. Ani Pema served as the director of the Karma Dzong, in Boulder, CO, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for western monks and nuns. This book was interesting and I did learn a lot from it. I really wasn't familiar with Buddhism and I think this was a good way to dip a toe.