Train like a Jedi: U.S. nun Pema Chodron

Pema Chodron is a wise woman (Medium)

American Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, author of When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, is like female Yoda, a character fashioned after a Tibetan Buddhist lama or master (with an ejaculatory speaking pattern and syntax of the 14th Dalai Lama).

Here the great monastic writer has advice on rousing ourselves when energy dwindles. We can train like Jedis under a master and view it as Obi-Wan Kenobi would.

One of Ven. Chödrön's most famous books, When Things Fall Apart, discusses uncertainty and how to find the good in discomfort and difficulty.

It's counterintuitive, but try it.

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 Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what we would expect.

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

Pema Chödrön: The Handshake Practice

What will we do then?

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

Pema Chödrön's perennially best-selling classic on overcoming life's difficulties cuts to the heart of spirituality and personal growth.

Now in a newly designed 20th-anniversary edition, to which she's added a new afterword, it makes for a perfect gift and addition to one's spiritual library.  More

• Pema Chödrön Foundation – Wisdom for a Courageous Life
• Himalayan Tibetan Nuns Project - The Pema Chodron Foundation
• Pema Chodron books and biography on Amazon
• Pema Chödrön (Shambhala); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly