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

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.

Things don't fall apart; it's all just an illusion, right?

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

NDE, CIA spy, Pema's 'When Things Fall Apart'

Pema Chodron; DOAC; Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

I was once a hot hippie, married, living in NM, then my husband said he was cheating on me...

How to grow in wisdom? Live.

Will the world end? Of course, it always ends and is always ending in the same way that we are always dying, only we don't usually notice until some misstep, stumble, or fall. But since birth, we have been dying, even though at the beginning, in our youth, we were growing and getting better and better until we started fading, then cycling, then having good days and bad. Yet through all of that, we have been hurtling toward destruction because impermanence (flux, change, alteration, uncontrollability) is the nature of existence, which is also impersonal and incapable of satisfying/fulfilling us. But we pretend it's not. So it might be good to prepare, to pull our head out of the sand and move out of the way just a little. It could be worse and will be better if we only look ahead. Here, two different voices say something about that, one through an NDE and the other, he alleges, through the CIA.

When Things Fall Apart

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times 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 Pema Chödrön suggests, might be just the opposite of what you expect. Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed book, she 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. More

How We Live Is How We Die (Pema Chödrön, Olivia Darnley, Shambhala)

CIA Spy: "Leave the USA before 2030!" Why you shouldn't trust your gut! - Andrew Bustamante

(The Diary of a CEO) March 4, 2024: Andrew Bustamante is a former covert CIA intelligence officer and US Air Force combat veteran. He is the founder of EverydaySpy, an online education platform that teaches real-world international espionage techniques that can be used in everyday life.

• 00:00 Intro
• 02:47 Your time at the CIA
• 03:15 What is the CIA?
• 03:57 You've got it wrong about spies
• 06:43 Applying real spy skills to overcome any barrier in our lives
• 08:13 How to manipulate people
• 18:15 The psychological profile of a CIA agent
• 21:13 I held the key to nuclear missiles
• 23:15 It was a horrible job
• 25:00 Would you have pressed the nuclear button?
• 27:18 The CIA message that changed my life
• 29:13 The interview process for the CIA
• 31:31 How did you feel when you received that letter?
• 33:54 Did the CIA tell you to cut off from your social circle?
• 34:44 Your ethnicity factor to be recruited by the CIA
• 36:03 Do you have to change your identity?
• 37:14 How expensive is it to train a CIA agent/operative?
• 37:21 What's the CIA training scheme?
• 38:04 Do they show you how to kill?
• 39:06 How you teach the art of lying
• 41:00 Body language and lying
• 42:46 Demystifying lying signs
• 45:44 How to tell if someone is lying
• 47:34 Human psychology
• 50:32 The essence of manipulation
• 52:09 How to find someone's ideology to manipulate them
• 56:12 Have you changed the way you look at the world?
• 01:00:01 Perception vs. Perceptive
• 01:01:59 Leaning into Objective vs. Subjective feelings
• 01:03:25 How to train yourself to apply rational objective perspective
• 01:05:54 Your business success
• 01:09:01 What is SADRAT?
• 01:11:07 Change the game when selling your products
• 01:13:13 What is espionage?
• 01:14:08 What is our secret life?
• 01:18:16 How to snter someone's secret life
• 01:23:33 How to apply it to business
• 01:26:19 Adapting to change faster than your opponent
• 01:29:18 Were there times your life was at threat?
• 01:31:43 Sexpionage, What is it?
• 01:33:49 Disguise, did you ever do it?
• 01:38:44 Do CIA agents get trained to not feel fear and anxiety?
• 01:41:23 How do they train you to slow down your emotional brain?
• 01:47:28 Your wife and you leaving the CIA
• 01:48:55 America is going through a hard period
• 01:54:15 What's the advice for everyone to make that change?
• 01:56:27 How does your identity stop you from evolving?
• 01:57:39 What is something you used to believe that you no longer do?

Want to learn more from Andrew? Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz. Explore Spy School: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the podcast: https://youtube.com/@EverydaySpyPodcast. Follow Andrew Twitter - https://bit.ly/49AI9qT Instagram - https://bit.ly/4bTOIqf YouTube - https://bit.ly/3IkEhOY.

Follow Shorts channel for more content: https://www.youtube.com/@TheDiaryofaC... Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGq-... Follow: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Sponsors: Whoop: https://join.whoop.com/en-uk/CEO

This could be The Year of Inner Wisdom

Tami Simon (soundstrue.com); Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What year is my Year of Inner Wisdom? Sounds True One

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Diana Winston (MARC UCLA)

What does Sounds True One think I can learn for Inner Wisdom? And who would teach me but me?

Life is unpredictable, but our path to fulfillment doesn’t have to be. Sounds True has worked with some of the leading wisdom teachers of our time to craft a journey of transformational programming to stay centered, listen to our inner voice, and awaken our full potential. Activate this inner wisdom with Sounds True this year.

Meet the Teachers

Join Sounds True One for the Year of You and save 30% today

• Pema Chödrön, author, American Buddhist nun, teacher
• Dr. Gabor Maté, MD, author, speaker, addiction medicine specialist, physician
• Tara Brach American Buddhist meditation teacher, bestselling author
• Jack Kornfield American Buddhist teacher, Bay Area therapist, author, activist
• Rev. Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith author and spiritual teacher from The Secret
• Michael A. Singer bestselling author and spiritual teacher
• Dr. Peter Levine, Ph.D. bestselling author, developer of Somatic Experiencing®
• Caroline Myss bestselling author, speaker
• Lama Rod Owens Black Buddhist Southern Queen
• Dr. Richard Davidson, Ph.D., neuroscientist, bestselling author
• Donna Eden energy medicine practitioner, author, teacher [WQ's favorite healer!]
• Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth Episcopal priest, artist, author, public speaker
• Dr. Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D. author, founder of Internal Family Systems
• Wim Hof author, Western pranayama (breath control) extreme athlete, global health leader
• Robert Peng Qigong Master, author, teacher
• Deb Dana author, Polyvagal Theory expert



Sounds True Founder Tami Simon

• Tami Simon founder and voice of Sounds True
• Justin Michael Williams artist, author, activist
• john a. powell author, professor of law and ethnic studies
• Shiva Rea author, yoga teacher
• Yung Pueblo bestselling author
• Eckhart Tolle spiritual teacher, bestselling author of The Power of Now More

What if American Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young had something important to say?

How we live is how we die: Pema Chodron

The Pema Chodron Foundation; CC Liu, Crystal Q., Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Discover newfound freedom in life’s ever-constant flow of endings and beginnings with the wise words of Pema Chödrön, beloved American Buddhist nun and bestselling author of When Things Fall Apart.

Bardo's peaceful, wrathful deities

As much as we might try to resist, endings happen in every moment — the end of a breath, the end of a day, the end of a relationship, and ultimately the end of life.

And accompanying each ending is a beginning, though it may be unclear what that beginning holds.

In How We Live Is How We Die, Pema Chödrön shares her wisdom for working with this flow of life —

• learning to live with ease, joy, and compassion through uncertainty, embracing new beginnings, ultimately preparing for death with curiosity and openness rather than fear.

Tibetan Book of the Dead (Tim Leary on LSD)

Poignant for readers of all ages, her teachings on the bardos — a Tibetan term referring to an intermediate state of transition, including what happens between this life and the next — reveal their power and relevance at each moment of our lives.

She also offers practical methods for transforming life’s most challenging emotions about change and uncertainty into a path of awakening and love.

As she teaches, the more freedom we can find in our hearts and minds as we live this life, the more fearlessly we’ll be able to confront death and what lies beyond.

In all, Pema provides readers with a master course in living life fully and compassionately in the shadow of death and change. How We Live is How We Die • The Pema Chodron Foundation

Q: An "easy" Dharma book to read?

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly QUESTIONS FOR THE EDITORS

Be sincere. The only "stupid" question is the one we are too afraid to ask.

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What the Buddha Taught

The Comments Section is open to any and all questions concerning life, the universe, and everything, but especially the Buddha's Teachings known as the Dharma (Dhamma).

Dan Eckhart asked an interesting question recently: Can you guys recommend an easy Dharma book to read?

Who Ordered This Dung?

Answer: Yes, Dan. Try Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? by awakened Buddhist comedian-in-robes Ajahn Brahm.

• VIDEO: I want to get enlightened with Ajahn Brahm

Apparently, Dan doesn't want to get bogged down in lists and Pali and Sanskrit terminology. He's a Westerner and wants some Western straight talk. Of course, we would always recommend What the Buddha Taught by Ven. Rahula as a concise text (Theravada).

When Things... (Pema Chodron)

But an American Buddhist nun would give all male authors a run for their money with the most down to earth Tibetan Buddhist advice: When Things Fall Apart.

It's from the pen of Pema Chodron (pemachodronfoundation.org) and talks about recovery, wound healing, and developing the heart when we're all already enlightened anyway (after all, "Samsara is nirvana" in the Mahayana imagination).

Sayalay Susila: This is a simple Abhidhamma book explained by the great Pa Auk Sayadaw.

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Unraveling Mysteries Mind/Body

The back-to-basics Buddhism of Theravada (the "Teaching of the Enlightened Elders" from the time of the Buddha) imagines no such thing. Samsara (endless rebirth), in a sense, is the antithesis of nirvana.

The Path to Happiness (Susila)

That is, if anything can be the opposite since nirvana is the only thing that is not a [conditioned, compounded] "thing."

For more on that, see the work of the Malaysian Burmese Buddhist nun Sayalay Susila (sayalaysusila.net) and the book she wrote with Wisdom Quarterly's very own Dharma Editor Seven.

• Looking for Happiness? (20-May-2023 Dhamma Talk @ BMV, KL) - Appamāda Viharī Meditation Center (sayalaysusila.net)

Self-Compassion with Pema Chodron (audio)

Pema Chodron (pemachodronfoundation.org via soundcloud.com), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pema Chodron Foundation · Self Compassion

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Deirdre Blomfield-Brown (Pema) was a hippie

This talk by Pema Chodron was recorded at the Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, New York, in May 1999.

It includes an overview of each of Buddhism's Four Limitless Qualities:

1. love,
2. compassion,
3. sympathetic joy,
4. and equanimity

with an explanation of the four lines of the Four Limitless Qualities chant.

You sound like you lived these life lessons. - Yes.

One of the key points to developing a connection to each of these qualities is training in relaxing with uncertainty, anxiety, unpredictability, and groundlessness.

Another is trusting in the good heart ("basic goodness"), the buddha-nature, of all beings. Such trust develops through inquisitiveness and honesty, especially with respect to our frailties, prejudices, and limitations. Four equanimity practices are introduced.

We work on ourselves to help others, but also we help others to work on ourselves.

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Comments

• David List

   at 0:00  · Posted 5 months ago5 months ago

  OM MANI PADME HUM

  Reply
• debra k

   at 52:06  · Posted 6 months ago6 months ago

  The usual -- brilliant, compassionate, humorous, great Dharma teacher Pema Chodron. Wish I were there. Thank you very much for this recording!!!

  Reply
• Lorrie O'Brien

   at 41:23  · Posted 6 months ago6 months ago

  Such a wise woman. Happy Birthday Pema!

  Reply
• eknath

   at 22:56  · Posted 10 months ago10 months ago

  Listened again today......and "again" gained a clearer understanding of "me" and how I tick...Pema helps me immensely. I'm most grateful

  Reply
• Cheryl Kass

   at 1:35  · Posted 1 year ago1 year ago

  Pema, live long and well

  Reply
• liilii

   at 1:18:46  · Posted 2 years ago2 years ago

  What retreat is this from? Thank you

  Reply
• eknath

   at 1:18:46  · Posted 1 year ago1 year ago

  @lii-lii-486296993 I think the retreat is listed. if you tap "behind this talk" all information comes up x

  Reply
• eknath

   at 1:18:46  · Posted 1 year ago1 year ago

  @lii-lii-486296993 ** BEHIND THIS TRACK ***

  Reply