Always Maintain a Joyful Mind
And Other Lojong Teachings on Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness

For centuries Tibetan Buddhists have relied on a collection of fifty-nine pith teachings (called lojongin Tibetan) to help them develop wisdom and compassion amid the challenges of daily living. In this book Pema Chödrön introduces these transformative teachings and offers guidance on how to make them part of our everyday lives.

This book also features a forty-five-minute audio program entitled "Opening the Heart," in which Pema Chödrön offers in-depth instruction on tonglen meditation, a powerful practice that anyone can undertake to awaken compassion for oneself and others.

Listen to an audio sample online in MP3 format—click here.

The Places That Scare You

We always have a choice, Pema Chödrön teaches: We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us and make us increasingly resentful and afraid—or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. Here Pema provides the tools to deal with the difficulties that life throws our way so we can:

• wholeheartedly accept ourselves and others, complete with imperfections
• stay in the present moment by seeing through strategies that cause us to resist life as it is
• tap into our natural reservoirs of humor, flexibility, courage, and wisdom
• courageously move toward what makes us feel insecure in a way that opens our heart and connects us with others

Book or CD set

Comfortable with Uncertainty

Comfortable with Uncertaintyoffers short, stand-alone teachings designed to help us cultivate compassion and awareness amid the challenges of daily living. Gleaned from Pema Chödrön's best-selling books, these passages explore topics of loving-kindness, mindfulness, "nowness," letting go, and working with painful emotions. They also offer meditation instructions for heightening awareness and overcoming habitual patterns that block happiness. By the end of the cycle of teachings, the listener will have completed the basic training for becoming a "warrior-bodhisattva," one who courageously takes up the path of awakening compassion.

Don't Bite the Hook

Finding Freedom from Anger, Resentment, and Other Destructive Emotions

Life has a way of provoking us with traffic jams and computer malfunctions, with emotionally distant partners and crying children—and before we know it, we're upset. We feel terrible, and then we end up saying and doing things that only make matters worse. But it doesn't have to be that way, says Pema Chödrön. It is possible to relate constructively to the inevitable shocks, losses, and frustrations of life so that we can find true happiness. The key, Pema explains, is not biting the "hook" of our habitual responses.

Getting Unstuck
A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity

An urge comes up, we succumb to it, and it becomes stronger. We reinforce our cravings, habits, and addictions by giving in to them repeatedly. Pema Chödrön guides us through this "sticky feeling" and offers us tools for learning to stay with our uneasiness, soften our hearts toward others, and ourselves and live a more peaceful life in the fullness of the present moment.

Audio CD

Awakening Loving-Kindness

Based on talks given during a one-month meditation retreat at Gampo Abbey, this book contains teachings that were intended to inspire and encourage practitioners to remain wholeheartedly awake to everything that occurs and to use the abundant material of daily life as their primary teacher and guide. The message for the retreat participants—and for the reader as well—is to be with oneself without embarrassment or harshness. This is instruction on how to love oneself and one's world.

Bodhisattva Mind

Teachings to Cultivate Courage and Awareness in the Midst of Suffering

Pema Chodron explains the core teachings of an ancient text--Shantiveda's THE WAY OF THE BODHISATTVA. Chodron answers heartfelt questions, largely from people trying to reconcile their individual conflicts with addressing the needs of others. Rather than sounding otherworldly, her peaceful tone and relaxed grasp of Buddhist teachings are inviting and familiar. Laughing frequently and feeling at home in front of a large audience, she speaks a language that listeners everywhere will appreciate. Almost thrilling in their simplicity and generosity, the segments of Shantiveda's text that she and others read to the audience teach the disciplines of calming one's mind and making sacrifices to serve others.

Audio CD

Noble Heart

You can’t get away from suffering. That’s the good news, teaches Pema Chodron. For at the core of your most painful experiences – perhaps more than anywhere else – you will find the seeds of your awakening. On Noble Heart, this bestselling author and Tibetan Buddhist shows you how vulnerability is our greatest spiritual resource on the path through life’s difficulties. Using special meditations and teachings, she shows how to cultivate your own noble heart – one that sheds its armor, and opens fearlessly to both heartache and delight. Recorded live as it happened within the peaceful shrine room of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Noble Heart is structured so that you can create your retreat at home or at your meditation center. Here are treasured teachings from this beloved acharya (master teacher) – a full 12 session curriculum of meditations, practices, teaching stories, and real-life examples presented in clear, easy-to-follow language. Noble Heart invites you to! discover for yourself the compassion and wisdom that have established Pema Chodron as a leading voice in American Buddhism. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Audio CDs