The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times | 
| Author: Pema Chodron
Publisher: Shambhala
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $2.32
You Save: $4.67 (67%)
New (41) Used (15) from $2.32
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 3422
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 208
Number Of Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 1590304497
Dewey Decimal Number: 294
EAN: 9781590304495
ASIN: 1590304497
Publication Date: March 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Pema Choedroen may have more good one-liners than a Groucho Marx retrospective, but this nun's stingers go straight to the heart: "The essence of bravery is being without self-deception"; "When we practice generosity, we become intimate with our grasping"; "Difficult people are the greatest teachers." These are the punctuations to specific teachings of fearlessness. In The Places That Scare You, Choedroen introduces a host of the compassionate warriors' tools and concepts for transforming anxieties and negative emotions into positive living. Rather than steeling ourselves against hardship, she suggests we open ourselves to vulnerability; from this comes the loving kindness and compassion that are the wellsprings of joy. How do we achieve it? Through meditation, mindfulness, slogans, aspiration, and several other practices, such as tonglen, which is taking in the pain and suffering of others while sending out happiness to all--emphasis on the all. Choedroen introduces each of these practices in turn, backing them up with succinct practical reasoning and a framework of ideas that offers fresh interpretations of familiar words like strength, laziness, and groundlessness. Choedroen is the type of person you'd like to have with you in an emergency, and to deal with the extremes of daily life. In her absence, The Places That Scare You will do nicely. --Brian Bruya
Product Description
We always have a choice, Pema Choedroen 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. Here Pema provides the tools to deal with the problems and difficulties that life throws our way. This wisdom is always available to us, she teaches, but we usually block it with habitual patterns rooted in fear. Beyond that fear lies a state of openheartedness and tenderness. This book teaches us how to awaken our basic goodness and connect with others, to accept ourselves and others complete with faults and imperfections, and to stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 "May we lead the life of a warrior." August 25, 2001
G. Merritt (Boulder, CO)
135 out of 143 found this review helpful
"I offer this guide on the training of the compassionate warrior," Pema Chodron writes in the Prologue of her newest book. "May it help move us toward the places that scare us. May it inform our lives and help us to die with no regrets" (p. 2). Chodron is a Buddhist nun, and the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia. Chogyam Trungpa was her teacher. When Chodron was about six years old, an old woman told her, "Little girl, don't you go letting life harden your heart" (p. 3). Chodron offers this "pith instruction" as the central teaching of her this book. She writes, "we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice" (p. 3).
Chodron quotes Albert Einstein, who observed "a human being . . . experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty" (p. 9). To escape this prison, Chodron encourages us to live life with an enlightened heart and mind ("bodhichitta"), and by analogy, with the "rawness of a broken heart" (p. 4). "This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we're arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all" (p. 4). "Each of us has a variety of habitual tactics for avoiding life as it is" (p. 15), Chodron writes. She teaches us that through the heart practices of sitting meditation (the "natural seat" and "home ground" of bodhichitta training, p. 23), loving-kindness, compassion, tonglen, joy, and equanimity, wherever we are, we can train as a bodhichitta warrior. "Bodhisattva training encourages us to have a passionate involvement with life," Chodron says, "regarding no emotion or action as unworthy of our love and compassion, regarding no person or situation as unacceptable" (p. 115).
"Warriors-in-training need someone to guide them," Chodron says, "a master warrior, a teacher, a spiritual friend, someone who knows the territory well and can help them find their way" (p. 113). For some people, reading this book along with Chodron's previous books, START WHERE YOU ARE and WHEN THINGS FALL APART, may be enough. Chodron is a wise teacher. Rather than praising these three books all day, I'll conclude by saying this book is sure to become one of the most trusted dharma resources on my bookshelf.
G. Merritt
 Good book November 10, 2001
71 out of 78 found this review helpful
This book is a good one, and as challenging as one would expect. Practical, down to earth, funny, and honest. No dogma. The author is a compassionate person and it comes through in her writing. Pema Chodron, like another of my favorite authors, Taro Gold, simply invites us to think deeply. Also read 'Open Your Mind, Open Your Life' by Taro Gold. Excellent!
Profound, practical guide to attaining wisdom April 20, 2002
69 out of 70 found this review helpful
I've read this book three times in two weeks. I read so many books about wisdom. The Four Agreements (not so good), meditation by Jack Kornfeld books, Nietzche, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. I've read Pema Chodron's previous books, and those didn't speak to me as deeply as this one does. I don't read just to pass the time. I read to find wisdom. This book contains deep wisdom.
The author lays out ways to analyze ourselves, our emotions and our thoughts. She discusses how we as humans react to our thoughts and pain. Her book analyzes the causes and roots of suffering. She then asks "why do must people suffer in such a similar way?". Decades of acquired wisdom are then offered.
The causes and roots of suffering are our fleeing from pain, running for comfort. Fleeing without knowing why, fleeing without knowing where we are going. The descriptions of human behaivor are spot on accurate. This describes so many Western philosophers, political reformers, talented artists, and many people who are looking to find 'the one true way'.
After laying out the causes of suffering, she distills her understanding of human behaivor, and gives us ways to approach these problems. Practical, approachable ways that you can build on over time. This isn't a set of principles of "Look at the world with happiness, and you too will be happy", or a collection of trite sayings to convince yourself "You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you". Slogans don't allow us to analyze and understand the root causes of our pain and suffering. This book lays out those causes. And it lays out ways we can study suffering, and use our efforts to transform our lives from unsure, troubled beings to people who have a firm grasp of themselves. This self understanding leads to lots of confidence. And she uses a scientific method for this analysis.
There are two books i read over and over. "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", which i've been learning from regularly for 4 years. And now this one.
Suzuki Roshi said 'We are always looking for something, without knowing what we are doing'. We are looking for happiness. This book studies what is happiness, what is suffering, why is it so temporal, and what can i do about attaining it.
And it helps us understand what we are doing.May you benefit from this wisdom as much as I have.
"Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work."
--James Randi
Be. Here. Now. November 16, 2002
Ronald Scheer (Los Angeles)
69 out of 71 found this review helpful
In the current age of anxiety, Pema Choedroen is both a refreshing and challenging voice. Basically, she encourages us to see problems as spiritual opportunities. Instead of trying to run from discomfort, she advocates staying put and learning about ourselves. Instead of habitually reaching for whatever palliative gives relief -- always temporary -- she suggests feeling and observing our discomforts, becoming more fully present in our lives, learning how to be truly here now. Only through this process, she says, can we experience the deep joy of being alive.This is a great companion volume to her book "When Things Fall Apart." It elaborates on themes introduced there, describing several practices of Tibetan Buddhism, some ancient and long forgotten, which help us not only cope with anxiety but use it to overcome fearfulness. This is an important spiritual effort because while we typically think of hate as the enemy of love, it is really fear that makes love difficult. Fear immobilizes us, makes us pull the covers over our heads, and isolates us from others. Choedroen, a student of Choegyam Trungpa, encourages the consistent practice of meditation. And she discounts the usual results-driven expectations people associate with it, pointing out that as we confront our true selves in meditation, it often becomes more and more difficult, not easier. And for those who have found meditation fiercely frustrating, as I have, she has alternatives. The practice of "tonglen" is one simple spiritual ritual that can be done anywhere, anytime, providing a dramatic and freeing shift in emotional perspective. Learning not to let disappointment, anger, and hurt trigger our personal melodramas, which sap our energy, we can find our way to greater equanimity and become a less destructive presence in the world. I strongly recommend this book as a welcome spiritual tonic in troubled times, whether that trouble originates elsewhere or from within. As with her other books, you can read and reread it, each time discovering much to learn and reflect on -- and in her words, "this is news you can use."
OPEN YOUR HEART AND YOU RELEASE SUFFERING! September 18, 2001
Sandra D. Peters (Prince Edward Island, Canada)
66 out of 68 found this review helpful
Pema Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhis nun, is the one inspirational person you would choose to have with you when your world falls apart. Being a follower of Buddhist Philosophies for many years, I have found inner peace, strength, love and fulfillment through my beliefs. Each one of us must find "enlightenment" from whatever source we alone believe in, but for me, personally, Buddhism has been the answer. As the author reminds us, "Loving kindness comes from opening ourselves to vulnerability."Meditation, mindfulness and practices such as "tonglen" (taking in the pain and suffering of others while sending out happiness) can be key tools in ridding ourselves of negativity, anxiety and fear. Each of us has within us the power to overcome that which causes us fear. Chodron explains how we can use these tools to overcome almost any obstacle or challenge. Another book by the same author which is highly recommended is "When Things Fall Apart." Both offer excellent words of wisdom and advice and both are deserving of a five-star rating. Chodron is a teacher, a sage, an inspirationalist, a mentor and a prime example of one who is good, compassionate, understanding, kind and loving.
|
|
|
