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Cover of Start Where You Are by Pema Chödrön

Start Where You Are

  • 240 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 1994
  • 7 editions

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1 About this book

Start Where You Are is an indispensable handbook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart. With insight and humor, Pema Chodron, 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 Chodron 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; - Be grateful to everyone.

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.

Good for readers who want: Buddhism, spirituality, and meditation.

  • Buddhism
  • Spiritual life
  • Meditation
  • Religious life, buddhism
  • Doctrines
  • Caring

2 About Pema Chödrön

Born 1936

Pema Chödrön (Standard Tibetan: པདྨ་ཆོས་སྒྲོན།, romanized: padma chos sgron, lit. 'lotus dharma lamp'; born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, July 14, 1936) is an American-born Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Chödrön has written several dozen books and audiobooks, and was principal teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. She retired in 2020.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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