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 audiobook 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.

Start Where You Are is an indispensable audiobook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart. With insight and humor, Pema Chödrön offers guidance on how we can accept our flaws and embrace ourselves wholeheartedly as a prerequisite for developing compassion.

Where will we look when we are afraid? How do we find strength? In what can we place our trust? According to Tibetan Buddhism, there are four noble aspirations, known as the Four Great Catalysts of Awakening, which we can call on to cultivate strength and openness in any situation. From Fear to Fearlessnessbrings us into the company of beloved teacher Pema Chödrön to discover and cultivate these four immeasurables: maitri (loving-kindness), compassion, joy, and equanimity.

For over 800 years, Tibetan Buddhists have used lojong (literally, "mind training") to transform difficulties into insights, and conflict into genuine communication. Lojong practice uses a special meditation technique and 59 written maxims - a treasury of practical wisdom that inspires everyday awareness. Awakening Compassion is the first audio retreat on the practice of lojong taught by Pema Chödrön, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun and best-selling author.

Life has a way of provoking us with traffic jams and computer malfunctions, with emotionally distant partners and crying children—and before we know it, we're upset. We feel terrible, and then we end up saying and doing things that only make matters worse. But it doesn't have to be that way, says Pema Chödrön. It is possible to relate constructively to the inevitable shocks, losses, and frustrations of life so that we can find true happiness. The key, Pema explains, is not biting the "hook" of our habitual responses.

Happiness is your birthright and it is readily available at any given moment, teaches Pema Chodron. So, why do we live in such suffering? "The potential for happiness is not based on outer things; they come and go, causing us misery," she begins. "We're always chasing after something, trying to avoid the difficult places. But there are a lot of small sweetnesses that we ignore because they're so fleeting."

It’s true, as they say, that we can only love others when we first love ourselves and we can only experience real joy when we stop running from pain. The key to understanding these truisms lies in remaining open to life in all circumstances, and here Pema Chödrön shows us how. Because when we embrace the happiness and suffering, intelligence and confusion that are a natural part of life, we can begin to discover a wellspring of courageous love within our hearts.

Beloved Tibetan Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön has a unique gift for helping those of all faiths to work with their most difficult inner and outer challenges. In this supportive series of talks, listeners will join her at her best - showing us the way back to our wisest and most heartful selves. Here, Pema shares three simple, time-honored steps to practice when we are in pain or crisis.

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 Chödrön 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.

One of the best ways to bring meditation off the cushion and into everyday life is to practice lojong (or mind training). For centuries, Tibetans have used fifty-nine powerful mind-training slogans as a way to transform life’s ordinary situations into opportunities for awakening. In this audio program, Pema Chödrön presents her definitive audio teachings on lojong. She offers an overview of the practice and goes on to provide inspiring commentary on the slogans while paying special attention to how to apply them on the spot in our daily lives.

Learn how to use the gift of pain with Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. She teaches that it is in suffering where you will find the seeds of your awakening and that vulnerability is actually your greatest spiritual resource. You'll learn how to create your own spiritual retreat, the key teachings necessary for cultivating your own "soft spot" - the gateway to your own noble heart, the promise of the Four Limitless Ones, and the teachings on the Six Paramitas: the Buddha's own map of the journey to enlightenment. This program was recorded within the peaceful shrine room of Gampo Abbey, Chödrön's home on the cliffs of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

Lojong is a powerful Tibetan Buddhist practice created especially for training the mind to work with the challenges of everyday living. It teaches our hearts to soften, reframes our attitude toward difficulty, and allows us to discover a wellspring of inner strength. In this recorded retreat, Pema Chödrön introduces the lojong teachings and explains how we can apply them to any situation in our life—because, as Pema says, "every moment is an opportunity for awakening."

In this recorded retreat, based on the program Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change held at Omega Institute, Pema Chödrön and her teaching assistant, Meg Wheatley, provide a wealth of wisdom for learning to step right into the river: to be completely, fearlessly present even in the hardest times, the most difficult situations. It's the secret of being fully alive.

Fear and guilt are two of the greatest challenges we face on the spiritual path—but there is a way to transform these painful feelings into courageous self-acceptance. Here Pema Chödrön presents the five aphorisms for developing fearlessness that were given to Machig Lapdronma, one of Tibetan Buddhism's greatest female teachers.

What if the full sense of our aliveness were only to be found amidst our most challenging times and difficult experiences? In pain and crisis, teaches Pema Chödrön, there lies a hidden doorway to freedom that appears to us only when we're sure that there is no way out. In these intimate audio learning sessions, Pema Chödrön helps us distinguish the triggers or external events that we blame for our suffering from the deeper habitual patterns that feed our anger, fear, or sadness.