Making Friends with Your Mind: The Key to Contentment

Return to the Inner Flow and Freedom of Unconditional Friendliness

Have you ever found yourself thinking your way into a tangle of fret, frustration, or gloom? And then something small--a few kind words, the sun glancing through the clouds, a warm cup of tea--gave you a welcome pause from all your inner chatter? With Making Friends with Your Mind, that's what Pema Ch dr n helps us to do, not by chance but with our full intention: to stop fighting with our thoughts and reopen ourselves to wonder as naturally as we breathe.

The Buddha saw that the human experience is full of drama: confusion and conviction, joy and sorrow, success and failure--and that our minds love to amplify all of it. We decide somebody or something is a certain way, muses Pema Ch dr n, and then that judgment gets frozen and fixated, long after things change. And things always change, right?

In these free-spirited sessions, Ani Pema helps you to bring awareness to those inflexible thoughts and sticking points. Through meditations, daily practices, and the kind of simple pointers that can change our lives, you'll learn that it is entirely possible to return to the flow and freedom of your experiences--and to find your way each day closer to a place of unconditional friendliness with yourself and with those in need.

Author: Pema Chodron
Publisher: Sounds True
Published: 09/01/2016
Binding Type: CD
Weight: 0.10lbs
Size: 4.90h x 5.60w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9781622037322

About the Author

Pema Chödrön
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. Pema has two children and three grandchildren.

While in her mid-thirties, 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 Sixteenth Karmapa came to Scotland at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him.

Pema first met her root guru, 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 Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.

Ani Pema served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for western monks and nuns.

Ani Pema currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She is also a student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the oldest son and lineage holder of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Ani Pema is interested in helping establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. Her non-profit, The Pema Chödrön Foundation, was set up to assist in this purpose.

She has written several books: The Wisdom of No Escape, Start Where You Are, When Things Fall Apart, The Places that Scare You, No Time To Lose, Practicing Peace in Times of War, How to Meditate, and Living Beautifully. All are available from Shambhala Publications and Sounds True.


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