The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)
Pema Chödrön, beloved Buddhist nun and best-selling author, offers this treasury of 108 short selections from her more than four decades of study and writings. Here she presents teachings on breaking free of destructive patterns; developing patience, kindness, and joy amid our everyday struggles; becoming fearless; and unlocking our natural warmth, intelligence, and goodness. Designed for on-the-go inspiration, this is a perfect guide to Buddhist principles and the foundations of meditation and mindfulness.
The Shambhala Pocket Library is a collection of short, portable teachings from notable figures across religious traditions and classic texts. The covers in this series are rendered by Colorado artist Robert Spellman. The books in this collection distill the wisdom and heart of the work Shambhala Publications has published over 50 years into a compact format that is collectible, reader-friendly, and applicable to everyday life.
Reviews (181)
An essential tool during a stressful workday!
I keep this gem in my pocket instead of my iPhone all workday long. I focus on one chapter a day and every time I'm feeling anxious and stressed I read it and instantly feel calm and centered. I may read it five times or I may read it five hundred times. Like seated mediation, I read it when I need to return to a place of calm. Reading this book is like stepping outside for a breath of fresh air. It's small and concise yet infinitely powerful!
Feel crappy? This book can help pull you out of it.
This book is amazing for when you just feel like crap and you think you should have it ALL together by now and what's your problem etc The firs 11 pages really have power to comfort when you're in some crappy place and want to blame yourself. Great perspectives!
I Love this Book
I love the size which easily tucks into almost any size purse/bag. The book has short thoughts about gentle ways to meditate, focus on positive things, and reframe ways of thinking in ways that resonate. I keep it with me to read a page or a few pages while waiting for appointments, etc. She presents things in such real, earthy and honest ways. She writes as if we're on an even playing field, never talking down to the reader or making things more complicated than they need to be.
Perfectly Pema
It's everything wonderful you've read by Pemi but squeezed into a tiny travel size to carry in your handbag or store in a nightstand drawer.
She's the best
Pema is a gem and I carry this in my purse for perusing wherever and whenever I have wait time and want the very best mind traffic running through me. As a Shambhalyan I recognize and value Pema's clear and loving presentation of the principles and precepts that our current tradition holder, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and our original teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche bestowed upon us.
Such a great little gift
This is such a great little gift. I love how you can read a page or two at a time, as a good reminder to stay centered and grounded. It's nice to flip back and forth to process, and easy to pack while traveling of just throw into your purse if you need something to kill a little bit of time
Gets to the heart of things
This book is filled with pearls of wisdom that go far beyond the "feel good" quotes in many self help books. I did have trouble with Pema Chodrons words on impermanence and acceptance of living with the knowledge that all things change, all things die. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be the "warrior" she talks about, but while some of it left me pretty uncomfortable, it is still a book I'll return to again and again.
Excellent ideas about becoming a better person.
Just like the Thich Nhat Hanh book I have,her book of advise is also very useful into being more introspective and asking yourself questions and how to become a better individual through the process of loving kindness.Having compassion for others and seeing past superficial ideas and images is part of the message to put into practice.
Pema is my all time favorite spiritual teacher and here she is in compact form!
Pema Chodron is simply my favorite spiritual writer and I'm glad to have The Pocket Pema to carry with me while traveling. She has helped me tremendously after the death of my beloved husband and she has helped increase my compassion towards all living things.
"There's no cure for the facts of life"
Part outline, part entree, part reminder of all that we have read earlier from Pema, the notes we would have taken in her class (were we enlightened enough to do so). The more extended teachings -- on happiness, fear, uncertainty, on identifying the hook of habitual behaviors and choosing otherwise, on seeking out rather than avoiding the life in which you are "continually thrown out of the nest," on the difference between repressing and refraining -- remain essential, and references to those sources are provided in the back of this little pocket book. Yet this diminutive, pithy collection is like an extended slogan, or the stone pocketed on the shore during your last night at retreat, a convenient yet powerful reminder of something good and sane that can help guide you through times -- such as these -- when goodness and sanity are up against some pretty ancient thinking and habits. It's the nature of things to change, Pema tells us, "and you don't have to freak out about it." Said another way, that might take a book's worth of observation and explication. The reader should come to this collection aware that it is a sampling, a distillation. Some of the teachings are complex; some of the students are not ready; times change, receptiveness matures. Pema wouldn't tell you to "abandon hope," if it were not good for you, so be willing to learn more about that, if it seems at odds with your expectations. Start here, and then use the references to read further.
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