What about 'When Things Fall Apart'?

It's time to die, and you're next. (Ready? You can't be surprised. You knew Death was coming).

What? This doesn't apply to me. I'm fine. I'm famous, I'm young, I'm pretty, and I'm rich!!!
Beauty queen Ariana Viera dead at 26 after car crash in Orlando, Florida (Samsara Times)

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How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart — when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain?

The answer, American Buddhist nun Ani Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what one expects.

Here, in her most famous and beloved work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined.

Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, she offers life-changing tools for transforming suffering and negative patterns into habitual ease and boundless joy. shambhala.com

What does Pema know?

American Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chodron

Ani Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City.

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.

The venerable nun was once a hot young hippie

Pema has two children and three grandchildren. While in her mid-30s, Ani Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years. She became a novice nun in 1974 while studying with Lama Chime in London.

His Holiness the 16th Karmapa came to Scotland at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him.

Why Welcome the Unwelcome? That's crazy

Pema first met her root guru, [sex scandal ridden cult leader] 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 16th Karmapa, she received the full bhikshuni (Buddhist nun) ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.

• The Pema Chodron Foundation
• Ariana Viera (Kenia News); Ven. Pema Chodron (shambhala.com), 10/31/24; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly