The Essential Pema – Here’s a new topical guide through all of Ani Pema’s teachings. Downloadable and free.
The Best of Pema Chödrön: Life, Quotes and Books
In celebration of Pema’s 80th birthday, Lion’s Roar offers a collection of articles about Pema and her teachings: including biographical pieces; teachings on meditation; teachings on suffering; interviews; and selected articles and quotations.
Pema’s articles published in Lion’s Roar and Buddhadharma magazines
A collection of Pema Chodron’s articles on The Lion’s Roar website.
Pema Chödrön & k.d. lang talk Buddhism, creativity, and “gapaciousness”
The beloved Buddhist teacher and famed singer joined Sounds True founder Tami Simon for a lively and insightful conversation about meditation, learning from hard times, and what it means to get “gapacious.” The evening was a benefit for the Pema Chödrön Foundation and Tools for Peace.
A Beginner’s Guide to the Teachings of Pema Chodron
She’s a powerful teacher—and a prolific one. There’s a Pema teaching for every stage of your life. Here are some of the best.
4 Keys to Waking Up
Ani Pema says “Walking the walk means you’re very genuine and down to earth. You take the teachings as good medicine for the things that are confusing to you and for the suffering of your life.” (PDF Download, 9 pages)
5 Reasons to Meditate
It’s a strange thing to do – sit there and do basically nothing. Yet somehow this simple act of stopping, says the renowned American Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, is the best way to cultivate our good qualities. (PDF Download, 7 pages)
Pema Chodron Primer
Here’s a wonderful introduction to Pema and her work,
compliments of our friends at Shambhala Publications.
(PDF Download, 33 pages).
Meditation for Difficult Times
Meditation takes us just as we are, with our confusion and our sanity. This complete acceptance of ourselves as we are is a simple, direct relationship with our being. We call this maitri, loving-kindness toward ourselves and others.
Waking Up to Your World
Throughout our day we can pause, take a break from our usual thoughts, and wake up to the magic and vastness of the world around us. Pema Chodron says this easy and spacious type of mindfulness practice is the most important thing we can do with our lives.
Choosing Peace
There is a key moment, says Pema Chodron, when we make the choice between peace and conflict. In this new teaching from her program Practicing Peace in Times of War, she describes the practice we can do at that very moment to bring peace for ourselves, for others, and for the world.
Turn Your Thinking Upside Down
We base our lives on seeking happiness and avoiding suffering, but the best thing we can do for ourselves—and for the planet—is to turn this whole way of thinking upside down. Pema Chodron shows us Buddhism’s radical side.
No Time To Lose
Pema Chodron offers her unique perspective on The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva’s classic description of the Mahayana path. Here she addresses one of the most important of all spiritual questions—how to free ourselves from the powerful spell of the emotional afflictions.
Pema Chodron and Dzigar Kongtrül: Let’s be Honest
Pema Chodron and Dzigar Kongtrül—a student and her teacher—talk straight about honesty, self-deception, and why the difference is the key to the dharma.
The Answer to Anger and Aggression is Patience
We can suppress anger and aggression or act it out, either way making things worse for ourselves and others. Or we can practice patience: wait, experience the anger and investigate its nature. Pema Chodron takes us step by step through this powerful practice.
A Bodhicitta Practice
Pema Chodron offers a method for generating love and compassion for all human beings.
Stay With the Soft Spot
Pema Chodron on how to awaken bodhichitta—enlightened heart and mind—the essence of all Buddhist practice.
Lojong: How to Awaken Your Heart
Pema Chodron’s commentary on Atisha’s famed mind-training slogans that use our difficulties and problems to awaken our hearts.
How We Get Hooked and Unhooked
Shenpa is the urge, the hook, that triggers our habitual tendency to close down. We get hooked in that moment of tightening when we reach for relief. To get unhooked we begin by recognizing that moment of unease and learn to relax in that moment.
What To Do When the Going Gets Rough
Pema Chodron on four ways to hold our minds steady and hearts open when facing difficult people or circumstances.
Bodhicitta: The Excellence of Awakened Heart
The mind of enlightenment, called bodhichitta, is always available, in pain as well as in joy. Pema Chodron lays out how to cultivate this soft spot of bravery and kindness.
The Key to Knowing Ourselves is Meditation
Meditation practice awakens our trust that the wisdom and compassion that we need are already within us. It helps us to know ourselves: our rough parts and our smooth parts, our passion, aggression, ignorance and wisdom.
Buddhist Meditation is Relaxing With the Truth
It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves as we are, says Pema Chodron, that meditation becomes a transformative process. The pith instruction is, Stay. . . stay. . . just stay.
Six Kinds of Loneliness
To be without a reference point, says Pema Chodron, is the ultimate loneliness. It is also called enlightenment.
It Starts With Uncertainty
Margaret Wheatley and Pema Chodron discuss how organizations can acknowledge their confusion and trust in the goodness of the underlying order.
Signs of Spiritual Progress
“As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success,” says Pema Chodron, “we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.”
Good Medicine for This World
Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron and novelist Alice Walker on how tonglen meditation practice opens our heart, expands our vision, and plants the seeds of love in our lives. From an evening of discussion at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theater.
Looking Into Laziness
Rather than feeling discouraged by laziness, we could get to know laziness profoundly. Pema Chodron on how this very moment of laziness becomes our personal teacher.
To Know Yourself is to Forget Yourself
According to Pema Chodron, we might think that knowing ourselves is a very ego-centered thing, but by beginning to look clearly and honestly at ourselves, we begin to dissolve the walls that separate us from others.
The Threefold Purity
“To begin with, just give up any expectations of yourself. That’s a simple good instruction for how to do Buddhist meditation.”
Everybody Loves Something
According to Pema Chodron, love and compassion are like the weak spots in the walls of ego. If we connect with even one moment of the good heart of bodhicitta and cherish it, our ability to open will gradually expand.
Three Methods for Working With Chaos
Times of chaos and challenge can be the most spiritually powerful . . . if we are brave enough to rest in their space of uncertainty. Pema Chodron describes three ways to use our problems as the path to awakening and joy.
Transforming the Heart of Suffering
This is a beautiful discussion of the practice of Tonglen – taking and sending.