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. Pema’s previous works provided the inspiration and guidance to confront the problems and difficulties that life throws our way. Here she provides the specific tools to deal with them – to cultivate the awakened, compassionate ability to open our hearts and minds to our own suffering and that of others. This wisdom is always available to us, Pema teaches, but we usually block it with habitual patterns rooted in fear. Beyond that fear lies a state of openheartedness and tenderness. In The Places That Scare You, Pema Chödrön shows us how to:

• move toward what makes us feel insecure, uncertain, and fearful as a way to awaken our basic goodness and connect with others

• cultivate loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity

• accept ourselves and others, complete with faults and imperfections

• stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is

• use “on-the-spot” practices to tap into natural reservoirs of humor, flexibility, courage, and wisdom

• establish a relationship with a spiritual teacher

Shambhala Lion Editions. Unabridged book on tape read by Tami Simon.

4 CASSETTES

4.5 HOURS

Pema Chödrön is a bhikshuni, or Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. Since her ordination in 1974, Ane Pema ("Ane" is a Tibetan honorific for a nun) has conducted workshops, seminars, and meditation re-treats in Europe, Australia, and throughout North America. She is the director of Gampo Abbey, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery for monks and nuns in North America. Pema Chödrön is also an acharya (master teacher) in the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. She is the author of The Wisdom of No Escape; Start Where You Are; and When Things Fall Apart.