The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra (Extract From Chapter Six )

Chogyam Trungpa - The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra

Extract From Chapter Six - Alpha Pure

As we said at the beginning, the journey through the nine yanas is a process of rediscovering oneself. As you move along the path, you have a feeling of particular locations. You are traveling through a dense forest or through heavy snow; you are climbing mountains or crossing fields; you encounter rainstorms and snowstorms. You have to stop each night to eat and sleep, and so on. All those experiences make up your journey. In a sense we could say that the rainstorms are your rainstorms, the snowstorms are your snow-storms, and the dense forests are your dense forests. It's your world. As you move through the nine yanas, it is yourself that you are rediscovering -more and more clearly.

At the beginning there is a vague idea that something is not quite right. There is something wrong with oneself. Things are questionable, and one begins to look into the question, to relate with the pain, the chaos and confusion. That is the hinayana level. Then at a certain stage some of the answers that arise out of the search begin to create further hunger, further curiosity. One~ heart becomes more and more steeped in the teachings. Then the mahayana experience of intense dedication to the path begins to take place. Dedication to the path in this case also means compassion, a loving attitude toward oneself and others. One begins to find one's place in the universe, in this world. Being on the bodhisattva path is finding one's place and one's sense of dedication in this universe. At that point, the universe is not threatening or irritating anymore. This is time for the very simple reason that one has developed a style for working with the universe; meditation in action has begun to develop.
As you go on then, you rediscover the brand-new world of tantra. An enormous surprise takes place. You recognize the magical aspect of the universe, which means yourself as well as everything else. You rediscover the redness of red, the blueness of blue, the whiteness of white, and so on. You rediscover the meaning of passion and the meaning of aggression, their vividness, their alive-ness, and also their transcendental quality. Rediscovering this new world is the vajrayana path.

At that point, not only do you realize the meaning of pain and confusion, and not only do you realize you have a place in the world, but you also develop a sense of dignity. In fact, you are the emperor of the universe, the king of the world. Your sense of dignity is related to the experience that you have an enormous place in this world. In fact, you are the maker of the world.

As the tantric experience develops through the lower tantras to the higher tantras, even the notion of being the emperor of the universe becomes unnecessary. You are the universe. You have no reference point, none at all. Everything is on the level of complete oneness. In higher tantric terms, this is known in Tibetan as kadak. Ka is the first letter of the Tibetan alphabet, dak means pure. So it means "pure right at the beginning," or you might say "alpha pure." Purity in this case has nothing to do with the relative reference point of pure as opposed to impure. Purity here has the sense of being really without comparison to anything, without any relative reference at all. That seems to be the state of development we are working toward. That, finally, is the level of the maha ati teachings, in which there is no reference point, none whatsoever. Therefore, in that state we find millions of reference points everywhere, which do not conflict with each other. Therefore we become precise and open, very general and very specific at the same time. That is the state of enlightenment, if it can be described at all in words. That's a sort of finger painting of the enlightenment idea.

The whole journey that we have discussed has its roots in overcoming spiritual materialism to begin with, then developing friendship toward oneself and others, and finally developing vajra pride, or a sense of dignity.1 Those three steps are the general guidelines for the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana, or tantra. And those experiences cannot come about without a teacher or master to begin with, on the hinayana level; a spiritual friend who minds one's business intensely on the bodhisattva or mahayana level; or, on the vajrayana level, a vajra master or vajra guru, who holds one's life strings in his hand.

There is a story about the abhisheka that the great tantric master Padmasambhava received from Shri Simha, the great sage of maha ati. Shri Simha reduced Padmasambhava to the form of the letter HUM. Then he ate it, he put it in his mouth and swallowed it. And when Padmasambhava came out the other end of Shri Simha, that completed his abhisheka. This is an example of the action of the vajra master. He is more than a teacher alone, more than a spiritual friend. The vajra master eats you up and shits you out, having completely processed you in his vajra body. That is the kind of power we're talking about. Without such a relationship, without this kind of communication, vajrayana cannot be presented. Without this, one cannot even come near to under. standing it. So relationships with the various levels of teacher are definitely requirements for progressing on the path.

Then, of course, there is the practice of meditation, which is another important part of the journey. One must practice meditation on the hinayana level in order to develop the basic sanity of relating to one's mind as a working basis. The satipatthana methods of mindfulness developed in the Theravada tradition are very powerful and important. The methods developed in the Sarvastivadin hinayana tradition that exists in Tibet, Japan, and China are identical.

When I was in India, I discussed meditation techniques for awareness practice with a Burmese master who was the disciple of a very great Burmese meditation teacher. When I told him about the vipashyana meditation technique that we used in Tibet, he shook his head and asked me, "When did you go to Burma?" So the methods seem to be identical.

It is necessary to begin at the beginning with the hinayana practice. Without that, we do not develop proper sense perception, so to speak. We have to have good eyesight and good hearing to read and listen to the teachings. And we have to have a good body in order to sit and meditate. Good sense perceptions here mean sense perceptions that are no longer distorted. We can have real understanding, no longer distorted by neurosis. That is absolutely necessary; there's no other way at all, according to Buddha anyway.

Having that solid rock bed for a foundation, that solid, sane, open, fresh ground, you can begin to build, to put up walls. That corresponds to the mahayana discipline of the six paramitas and friendliness to oneself and others. This gives us a sense of direction about how to act as good citizens, which is the bodhisattva path. After one has become a good citizen, there is an enormous possibility of becoming a genius. Basic sanity has developed and a proper lifestyle has been established. There are no hassles, no obstacles at all. Then you become a genius, which is the vajrayana level.

You become a fantastic artist, musician, sculptor, or poet. You begin to see the workings of the universe in its ultimate, last details. You are such a genius that you see everything completely. That's the final level.
This genius is described as jnana, wisdom. There are five types of genius, five wisdoms. There is mirrorlike wisdom, which is clarity. There is the wisdom of equality, which is seeing everything!~ at once in a panoramic vision. There is the wisdom of discriminating awareness, which is seeing details on an ultimately precise level. There is the wisdom of all-accomplishing action, in which speed does not have to be included in one's working situation, but things fall into your pattern. Then there is the fifth wisdom, the wisdom of dharmadhatu, or all-encompassing space, which develops enormous basic sanity and basic spaciousness in the sense of outer space rather than space that is related to the reference point of any planet. That is the kind of cosmic level of genius that we find in the vajrayana.

I suppose this seminar cannot be any more than a teaser for you. But at least you should know that millions of great people have been produced by this path; and not only have they been produced, but they all say the same thing. They've all gone through the same process that is being presented here. And we are not excluded from the possibility of becoming one of them. According to the Buddha, one out of every four people in the sangha becomes enlightened.

What we have done very roughly in this seminar has been to give a complete description of the path from the beginning stages to enlightenment. I hope you will have a sense of aspiration and feel joyful about what we discussed. The other possibility is that you might feel depressed, because you have heard about so many possibilities and good things, but none of them seem to apply to you. Well, okay, be that way-and use your depression as realization of the truth of suffering. Then you will have accomplished the first step already. Or if you are inspired, then buddha fever, the fever of buddha nature, has already possessed you. So let it be that way. It seems that whatever we do, we can't go wrong.

Buy The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra here.

Chogyam Trungpa - The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra

Buy The Lion's Roar: An Introduction to Tantra here.

This book is based on two historic seminars of the 1970s, in which Chögyam Trungpa introduced the tantric teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to his Western students for the first time. Each seminar bore the title "The Nine Yanas." Yana, a Sanskrit word meaning "vehicle," refers to a body of doctrine and practical instruction that enables students to advance spiritually on the path of Buddha-dharma. Nine vehicles, arranged in successive levels, make up the whole path of Buddhist practice. Teaching all nine means giving a total picture of the spiritual journey. The author's nontheoretical, experiential approach opens up a world of fundamental psychological insights and subtleties. He speaks directly to a contemporary Western audience, using earthly analogies that place the ancient teachings in the midst of ordinary life.

Extract From Chapter Six - Alpha Pure

Chogyam Trungpa - The Dawn of Tantra

Buy The Dawn of Tantra here.

Westerners wanting to know about tantra—particularly the Buddhist tantra of Tibet—often find only speculation and fancy. Tibet has been shrouded in mystery, and "tantra" has been called upon to name every kind of esoteric fantasy. In The Dawn of Tantra the reader meets a Tibetan meditation master and a Western scholar, each of whose grasp of Buddhist tantra is real and unquestionable. This collaboration is both true to the intent of the ancient Tibetan teachings and relevant to contemporary Western life.

Chogyam Trungpa - Glimpses of Abhidharma: From a Seminar on Buddhist Psychology

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The Abhidharma is a collection of Buddhist scriptures that investigate the workings of the mind and the states of human consciousness. In this book, Chögyam Trungpa shows how an examination of the formation of the ego provides us with an opportunity to develop real intelligence. Trungpa also presents the practice of meditation as the means that enables us to see our psychological situation clearly and directly.

Chogyam Trungpa - Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness

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The slogans contained in this book are designed to awaken the heart and cultivate love and kindness toward others. They are revolutionary in that practicing them fosters abandonment of personal territory in relating to others and an understanding of the world as it is.

The fifty-nine provocative slogans presented here—each with a commentary by the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa—have been used by Tibetan Buddhists for eight centuries to help meditation students remember and focus on important principles and practices of mind training. They emphasize meeting the ordinary situations of life with intelligence and compassion under all circumstances. Slogans include, "Don't be swayed by external circumstances," "Be grateful to everyone," and "Always maintain only a joyful mind."

This edition contains a foreword by Pema Chödrön.

Chogyam Trungpa - Illusion's Game: The Life and Teaching of Naropa

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In what he calls a "200 percent potent" teaching, Chogyam Trungpa reveals how the spiritual path is a raw and rugged "unlearning" process that draws us away from the comfort of conventional expectations and conceptual attitudes toward a naked encounter with reality. The tantric paradigm for this process is the story of the Indian master Naropa (1016–1100), who is among the enlightened teachers of the Kagyu lineage of the Tibetan Buddhism. Naropa was the leading scholar at Nalanda, the Buddhist monastic university, when he embarked upon the lonely and arduous path to enlightenment. After a series of daunting trials, he was prepared to receive the direct transmission of the awakened state of mind from his guru, Tilopa. Teachings that he received, including those known as the six doctrines of Naropa, have been passed down in the lineages of Tibetan Buddhism for a millennium.

Trungpa's commentary shows the relevance of Naropa's extraordinary journey for today's practitioners who seek to follow the spiritual path. Naropa's story makes it possible to delineate in very concrete terms the various levels of spiritual development that lead to the student's readiness to meet the teacher's mind. Trungpa thus opens to Western students of Buddhism the path of devotion and surrender to the guru as the embodiment and representative of reality.

Chogyam Trungpa - First Thought, Best Thought: 108 Poems

Buy First Thought, Best Thought: 108 Poems here.

Here is a unique contribution to the field of poetry: a new collection of works by America's foremost Buddhist meditation master, Chögyam Trungpa. These poems and songs—most of which were written since his arrival in the United States in 1970—combine a background in classical Tibetan poetry with Trungpa's intuitive insight into the spirit of America, a spirit that is powerfully evoked in his use of colloquial metaphor and contemporary imagery.

Most of the poems were originally written in English—clearly the result of the author's own perceptions of new forms and media offered to him by a different culture. Each poem has its own insight and power, which come from a skillful blend of traditional Asian subtlety and precision combined with a thoroughly modern vernacular. Several of the author's calligraphies accompany the collection.

Chogyam Trungpa - Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness

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Each day we deal with the challenges of ordinary life: a series of mundane experiences that could be summarized by the title of this book, Work, Sex, Money. We all hope that these aspects of our life will be a source of fulfillment and pleasure, and they often are. Yet they are also always sources of problems for which we seek practical advice and solutions. The best prescription, according to Chögyam Trungpa, is a dose of reality and also a dose of respect for ourselves and our world. His profound teachings on work, sex, and money celebrate the sacredness of life and our ability to cope with its twists and turns with dignity, humor, and even joy.

He begins by breaking down the barrier between the spiritual and the mundane, showing that work, sex, and money are just as much a part of our spiritual life as they are a part of our everyday existence. He then discusses these subjects in relation to ego and self-image, karma, mindfulness, and meditation. “Work” includes general principles of mindfulness and awareness in how we conduct everyday life as well as discussion of ethics in business and the workplace. “Sex” is about relationships and communication as a whole. “Money” looks at how we view the economics of livelihood and money as “green energy” that affects our lives. The result is an inclusive vision of life, one that encompasses the biggest issues and the smallest details of every day.

There are, in fact, few definitive answers in these pages. There is, however, authentic wisdom providing us with tools we need to work with the toughest stuff in our lives.

"Chögyam Trungpa shows us how to uncover our innate strength, confidence, and joy under any circumstances." — Pema Chödrön

The Pocket Chogyam Trungpa

Buy The Pocket Chogyam Trungpa here.

Here is a treasury of 108 short teachings by Chögyam Trungpa, one of the most influential Buddhist teachers of our time. Pithy and immediate, these teachings address a range of topics, including fear and fearlessness, accepting our imperfections, developing confidence, helping others, appreciating our basic goodness, and everyday life as a spiritual path.

See also The Pocket Pema Chodron here.

Chogyam Trungpa - Born in Tibet

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Chögyam Trungpa—meditation master, scholar, and artist—was identified at the age of only thirteen months as a major tulku, or reincarnation of an enlightened teacher. As the eleventh in the teaching lineage known as the Trungpa tulkus, he underwent a period of intensive training in mediation, philosophy, and fine arts, receiving full ordination as a monk in 1958 at the age of eighteen. The following year, the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet, and the young Trungpa spent many harrowing months trekking over the Himalayas, narrowly escaping capture.

Trungpa's account of his experiences as a young monk, his duties as the abbot and spiritual head of a great monastery, and his moving relationships with his teachers offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of a Tibetan lama. The memoir concludes with his daring escape from Tibet to India. In an epilogue, he describes his emigration to the West, where he encountered many people eager to learn about the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism.

Chogyam Trungpa - The Heart of the Buddha: Entering the Tibetan Buddhist Path

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In The Heart of the Buddha, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa presents the basic teachings of Buddhism as they relate to everyday life. The book is divided into three parts. In “Personal Journey,” the author discusses the open, inquisitive, and good-humored qualities of the “heart of the Buddha,” an “enlightened gene” that everyone possesses. In “Stages on the Path,” he presents the three vehicles—Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana—that carry the Buddhist practitioner toward enlightenment. In “Working with Others,” he describes the direct application of Buddhist teachings to topics as varied as relationships, drinking, children, and money. The Heart of the Buddha reflects Trungpa’s great appreciation for Western culture and deep understanding of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which enabled him to teach Westerners in an effective, contemporary way.

Chogyam Trungpa - Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

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There is a basic human wisdom that can help solve the world’s problems. It doesn’t belong to any one culture or region or religious tradition—though it can be found in many of them throughout history. It’s what Chögyam Trungpa called the sacred path of the warrior. The sacred warrior conquers the world not through violence or aggression, but through gentleness, courage, and self-knowledge. The warrior discovers the basic goodness of human life and radiates that goodness out into the world for the peace and sanity of others. That’s what the Shambhala teachings are all about, and this is the book that has been presenting them to a wide and appreciative audience for more than twenty years.

Chogyam Trungpa - The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation

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Freedom is generally thought of as the ability to achieve goals and satisfy desires. But what are the sources of these goals and desires? If they arise from ignorance, habitual patterns, and negative emotions, is the freedom to pursue these goals true freedom—or is it just a myth?

Chögyam Trungpa's unique ability to express the essence of Buddhist teachings in the language and imagery of modern American culture makes his books among the most accessible works of Buddhist philosophy. Here Trungpa explores the true meaning of freedom, showing us how our preconceptions, attitudes, and even our spiritual practices can become chains that bind us to repetitive patterns of frustration and despair. This edition features a new foreword by Pema Chödrön, a close student of Trungpa and the best-selling author of When Things Fall Apart.

Chogyam Trungpa - The Truth of Suffering and the Path of Liberation

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The truth of life has never been better or more succinctly articulated than in the Buddha's teaching on suffering, its cause, and its cessation—the famous formulation known as the Four Noble Truths. This concise handful of words is in fact the foundation from which all subsequent Buddhist teachings grow, and upon which all of them rely. Their wisdom is as pertinent to the scholar of Buddhist philosophy as it is to the ordinary practitioner, as it is indeed to anyone, anywhere, who aspires to liberation.

Chögyam Trungpa's in-depth exploration of the Four Noble Truths reveals the subtlety and sophistication that lie beneath these deceptively simple teachings. He emphasizes their profound relevance not just as an inspiration when we set out on the path but at every other moment of our lives as well, showing how we can join view (intellectual understanding) of the teaching with practical application in order to interrupt suffering before it arises.

His teaching is, as always, refreshingly direct and profoundly inspiring. The Truth of Suffering is an ideal introduction to the Four Noble Truths for the beginner as well as for the experienced practitioner in search of deeper understanding.

Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

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In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement—the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality." His incisive, compassionate teachings serve to wake us up from this trick we all play on ourselves, and to offer us a far brighter reality: the true and joyous liberation that inevitably involves letting go of the self rather than working to improve it. It is a message that has resonated with students for nearly thirty years, and remains fresh as ever today.

This new edition includes a foreword by Chögyam Trungpa's son and lineage holder, Sakyong Mipham.

Pema Chodron - Why I Became a Buddhist

Pema Chodron reveals the time-tested Buddhist antidote to suffering—and shows how to apply it in your own life. The simple and elegant meditation practice known as tonglen, she teaches, is the perfect medicine for "ordinary people like ourselves." Through tonglen, we can use life's difficulties as a way to befriend ourselves, accept the past we have rejected, and widen our circle of compassion.

Bill Moyers With Pema Chodron

During this in-depth interview filmed in 2006, Pema responds to Bill Moyers’ questions about spiritual warriorship, silent retreats, suffering, being “hooked” (shenpa), groundlessness and insecurity, Buddhism and the Buddha, prayer, faith, contentment, forgiveness and satisfaction.



Read the complete interview transcript:

BILL MOYERS: BILL MOYERS: Welcome. I'm Bill Moyers. We've seen in this series how faith has a place in keeping an open heart, and reason, a means of keeping an open mind. In this hour, Pema Chödrön takes us beyond faith and reason. Her answer to the frenzy of modern life is a calm mind and a warm heart, the journey and discipline of 30 years as a Buddhist nun. Buddhism is not so much a religion as it is a way of life. It marks no divide between the sacred and the secular. And when you get serious about it, Buddhism touches everyday experience. That's what Pema Chödrön teaches and writes. In helping many others to find their own footing on the path of enlightenment, she's also helping to change the face of Buddhism in America. Once upon a time, this was how most of us in the West thought of Buddhism -- monks, seeking mental and moral purification through ancient ritual. Images of great temples. Exotic art. And the mysterious, serene deity. But it was this man who came to personify Buddhism for us -- the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Buddhism. He fled Tibet when Chinese communists overran his country, and has since become one of the world's most popular spiritual figures. I'm just one of scores of journalists to whom he has patiently explained Buddhist concepts.

DALAI LAMA: Religion is not outside. Religion is here. I think essential, essential in a religion is good heart. Something I call love and compassion is the universal religion. That's my religion.

BILL MOYERS: In recent years, Buddhism has found a welcome in America, thanks to books by some of its leading teachers, who point the way to a practice based on direct experience, rather than belief. Pema Chödrön is one of those teachers. Here she is, at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, where people come to learn about Buddhism. PEMA CHÖDRÖN: The thing is, what we find if we're not used to sitting quietly with ourselves, not used to meditation, not used to having any inner solitude in our lives, we find that we're very threatened by nothing happening.

BILL MOYERS: When she's not on the road, teaching, Pema Chödrön lives, writes, and meditates at this monastic center in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where solitude replenishes her. For years, she trained as a pupil of the late renowned Buddhist master, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, of the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. She wasn't always Pema Chödrön. Born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, she grew up in New Jersey. Here she is as a teenager, at her wedding in the mid-'50s, and with her children. Her grandchildren trick-or-treat with a Buddhist Batwoman. And even Buddhist nuns have to pump their own gas these days. Her books sell widely, with titles such as, WHEN THINGS FALL APART, THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU, and NO TIME TO LOSE. Her readers not only discover modern insights into ancient practices. They also come to see how this housewife and mother became what the Buddhists call a bodhisattva warrior.

BILL MOYERS: What is a bodhisattva warrior?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, it's someone who takes a vow, actually, which I have done, and many Buddhists do, that, my main passion in life is to awaken myself. And I believe that everybody could do that. And I will devote my life to the degree that I can awaken. To that degree I will devote my life to trying to inspire other people to believe that they could and, obviously behind all this is the de-escalation of violence, and aggression, and the escalation of loving, kindness and compassion, and those kinds of feelings. So the path is about how the individual works with their own mind, and how that affects the family, the society, the nation, the world.

BILL MOYERS: After 30 years--

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: But it isn't like daydreaming that then, there's not going to be anymore mean people in the world. There's not going to be anymore prejudice in the world. And it's not just experience based on reading the books, and listening to the teachers. There's also a practice, which is a meditation practice. And then you just say everyone needs some solitude in their life. And this solitude could be that you take time to sit with yourself in meditation 15 minutes a day, you know. Or longer. Or you find time out in the busyness of the whole thing. I've had many times when I meditate, and it seems like my mind is just going a 100 miles an hour. And yet, when I stand up and walk into life, there's more room in my mind. I guess that's how I would describe it.

BILL MOYERS: More room in your mind?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah, someone once said to me, "The best in that spiritual instruction is when you wake up in the morning and you say, 'I wonder what's going to happen today?'" And then carry that kind of curiosity through your life.

BILL MOYERS: That's what intrigues me about you Buddhists. Is you go for long periods of time deep in to realms the rest of us are hardly aware of. What was the longest period you experienced silence?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: I guess a year.

BILL MOYERS: A year. What happens during that period?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: The first thing that happens is you climb the walls. This is personal with me. It doesn't happen anymore. But because the detox is so intense, I remember thinking like, someone coming to the door to just drop off a note or something. And I felt like I was in Kansas, and Oz was outside the door. You know, it's like sensory deprivation. But, gradually, what begins to happen is that you sink so deeply into what life has been distracting you from. Because it's a definition of no distractions. That's the purpose of the retreat, no distractions. You quickly learn that distractions are not just phone calls and emails and outer phenomena. Our own mind, and our longings, and our cravings, and our fantasies and everything are also major distractions. And, as time goes on, and you're feeding it less because no talking. You begin to sink deeper into the undistracted state. And then you begin to realize that life is always pulling you away from being fully present.

BILL MOYERS: Fully present. What is that?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: It is basically a wide awake state where your sense perceptions are wide open, in the tradition I follow. And if you could imagine seeing and hearing, tasting and smelling and so forth, without any filter between you and your experience. It's as if suddenly all of your sense perceptions have been like narrow little slits. And now they're wide open. Like they have no outer dimension. But let me say this, if the result of that life was that I had to stay in that seclusion, I wouldn't think I had it measured up to a hill of beans. So, for me, I always go out and in, in and out of this kind of situation. Because I want to go deeper. But, the only reason I want to go deeper is to be there for other people in increasingly difficult situations. It's kind of based on deeply longing to be free of suffering and then it extends to wanting other people to be free of suffering. And the suffering that you see escalated in the world. And one of the principle teachings of the Buddha was that he said, "I teach only two things. Suffering and the end of suffering." So this conviction that sentient beings could be free of suffering, they could end their suffering. That doesn't mean physical pain. It doesn't mean outer circumstances being unpleasant. It means what you do with the things that happen.

BILL MOYERS: The Buddha talked about the truth of suffering.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: What do you think he meant by suffering? And what do you Buddhists mean by suffering?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Suffering?

BILL MOYERS: Yes.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, that's a complex question, but it doesn't mean that we could be free of that, if fire burns you, it won't hurt. If you get cut, it won't hurt. It also doesn't mean that if someone you love very dear, deeply, dies you won't feel sadness. And it doesn't mean that bad things won't happen to you anymore, you know? It doesn't mean that you won't have your personal tragedies and catastrophes and crisis. And it also certainly doesn't mean that you could avoid planes flying into the towers, you know? Do you know what I'm saying?

BILL MOYERS: I do know about that because--

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: So it's all about that the end of suffering has to do with how you relate with pain. Let's distinguish just for semantics, the difference between, let's call pain the unavoidable and let's call suffering what could what could lessen and dissolve in our lives. So, if there's sort of a basic phrase you could say that it isn't the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it's how we relate to the things that happen to us that causes us to suffer. One of the things that this eighth century Indian Buddhist master, Shantideva, one of the things he says about this whole thing is work with little grievances such as the middle seat instead of the aisle seat or your favorite restaurant being closed or not being able to get into the movie. Or whatever it is, you know? He says "There's nothing that does not grow easier through familiarity." Putting up with little cares, I'll train myself to work with great adversity. So in other words, the premise there is that if you work with two, feeling hot and feeling cold, you work with mosquito bites and aisle and middle seats. And at that level, notice that you're hooked and work with not escalating it--

BILL MOYERS: You're hooked?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah. That I'm hooked. Hooked is an interesting quality to me.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean by it?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: I mean, not only has something, evoked a response in me but it's going to be difficult for me to let go. Anger is like that for sure. Prejudice is like that. Critical mindedness is like that. You don't want to let go. There's something delicious about finding fault with something. And that can be including finding fault with one's self, you know? So that's what I mean by hooked. You're sort of it because of the image of a fish and the hook and it has this juicy worm on it and you know the consequences aren't going to be good. But you cannot resist. And one of the main things we're addicted to is escalating aggression.

BILL MOYERS: So you escalate the anger.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: So I escalate the anger, you know? My teacher Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, he calls it pouring kerosene on the fire, you know? In an attempt to put it out, you pour kerosene on the fire.

BILL MOYERS: I like that. I like the idea of being hooked. It's a new metaphor for me in the-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: The word in Tibetan is Shenpa. And I've been teaching a lot about it lately because when I heard this teaching from one of my main teachers, Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, I thought this is fabulous. Because he says it isn't the words themselves that you're saying to yourself. It isn't the emotions. It's this charge behind them that's the Shenpa. It's this hooked quality this difficult to let go. In my case, I read a book by Ch–gyam Trungpa Rinpoche. And it really resonated, you know?

BILL MOYERS: What resonated?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: I'd have to go back a little bit further. I was at point in my life where I think it was the low point of my life. It evolved around a marriage breaking up. But-

BILL MOYERS: Your husband came home one day and said he was having an affair--

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: That's right. That's--

BILL MOYERS: He wanted a divorce, right?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: That's right.

BILL MOYERS: And what did you do?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: The first thing that happened, I had sort of an epiphany. Or I say in the book, I think, like a genuine spiritual experience which happens to people at a time of shock. Like car accidents and things. Which was time stood still. There was a completely timeless moment where all I saw was a light and heard the sounds. And it was like an eternal moment, you know? And then the mind came back. And I picked up a stone and threw it at him. You know? The mind came back and started, you know, this is what I'd say about fanning the whole thing, you know? But in any case, it took me a good year not to be over it. I wasn't over, I'd say, for about five years. But a good year for the pieces to sort of start coming back together. And in that time, I looked everywhere. Different therapies. All the different spiritual disciplines. I lived in an ashram. I did, you know weekend intensives in scientology which I didn't last very long in that. And--

BILL MOYERS: You went down the cafeteria of opportunity.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah, well, I was suffering. And, you know, I guess to say what I was saying before, it was like there was a pain that was, maybe, unavoidable. But then I was causing myself to suffer by struggling, struggling, struggling and what I was saying and so forth. But on the other hand, it was pretty absolute. I don't think there was any way to not suffer because the rug had been pulled out so completely. The pain was so great. And into that process, sort of, near the end of the year, I happened to see this article called Working with Negativity which was a chapter out of a book but was in a magazine. And I read it. And the first line is something like there is nothing wrong with negativity. Like, because what I was feeling was fear, rage and tremendous confusion about my rage and my hatred and a kind of a deep, profound unshakeable groundlessness. And nothing could fill it, you know? People would take me to the movies. They'd take me to nice dinners. They'd do all these things. And nothing could get the pieces back. And that was the first thing I had read that just spoke right to what was happening. Because I was thinking to myself all this time, from day one, when he told me from day one, I thought there's something very profound in what is happening here. There is something very profound. Because all I see now as I look out of my eyes at the world, I see that a lot of us are just running around in circles pretending that there's ground where there actually isn't any ground. And that somehow, if we could learn to not be afraid of groundlessness, not be afraid of insecurity and uncertainty, it would be calling on an inner strength that would allow us to be open and free and loving and compassionate in any situation. But as long as we keep trying to scramble to get ground under our feet and avoid this uneasy feeling of groundlessness and insecurity and uncertainty and ambiguity and paradox, any of that, then the wars will continue. The racial prejudice will continue. The hatred against people of a different -- you don't agree with their sexual preferences. You don't agree with their religion. You don't agree with their skin color. You don't agree with their whatever, you know? Their politics. It will always continue because you can't avoid being triggered. What triggers you can get less and less in your life. But, you know, if you're trying to avoid being triggered, I read something recently where someone said that's like becoming a celibate nun like me or monk and then trying to get rid of all the sexually attractive people in the world in order to keep your vows. You know, it just doesn't work. You have to work on your side of it, you know?

BILL MOYERS: Help me to understand this meaning of groundlessness. What is that?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, what is groundlessness? Well, you experience it all the time. You experience it all the time. And I don't know about you personally, but generally speaking when people react against it. We experience it as unpleasant when it's insecurity. You know, you feel insecure. That's a groundless feeling. Embarrassed. Like off center, you know? When my husband told me that we were breaking up, you know, he was having an affair and he wanted a divorce, that was a big groundless moment. When the planes flew into the towers everyone felt groundlessness. It was like our reality as we knew it wasn't holding together.

BILL MOYERS: I think that's why some of went to work, you know? My wife and I went right down to the office. While the second plane was hitting the tower. Because I felt the need and I think she probably did, too, to-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: To ground yourself. Yeah. So I'm not saying that it's entirely a bad thing. Because, I mean, ways that we experience groundlessness as a positive thing would be like awe, wonder, you know. Great beauty that just stops our mind. And so, as I say, sometimes it's pleasant. But my curiosity has been more around when it's unpleasant.

BILL MOYERS: And what was the step from that trauma in your life to taking up the training of becoming a nun?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, it didn't take very long. It didn't take very long, curiously enough, because believe me, it's the last thing, I grew up Catholic. And, not that I had a negative experience with nuns, but I never dreamt of being a nun, you know. It's the last thing I ever dreamt. But here I became a nun. So the first step was reading that article. And then I found a teacher. I wasn't looking for a teacher, but I met one. And, somehow within two years I became a nun. I mean it's very, very strange. In my life, when I've had certain thoughts, I say this is a forward thought and I have to follow it. It just happens every so often. And, for some reason taking the vows represented a forward thought. And, when I look back, it was premature. My children were young teenagers. And it would have been better to have waited until they were older.

BILL MOYERS: Did you ever feel guilt over that?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But in terms of having done it, I think the timing could have been better. But there's no other decision for me in life. That was the decision, you know. I always feel people are very fortunate, like this would be; you must feel this too. That somehow you find your niche or something. Where you always are somewhat on fire with a positive inspiration for, not even for your cause or something. But you've found something in your life that gives it deep meaning. And that doesn't run out.

BILL MOYERS: I understand better now what you write somewhere when you say that all you think most spiritual experiences begin with suffering. They begin with groundlessness. They begin when the rug has been pulled out from under.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Oh, they do. They do. They do. And I would say, as a teacher of meditation and Buddhist teachings, and talking to many other much more accomplished teachers than myself, one of the things that people say is that students can be very attracted to the ideas. And very enthusiastic about it, like intellectually and conceptually. But it's very superficial. It's not changing them at the core of their being. Or shaking anything up. You know, in terms of how they perceive reality. The limited kind of narrow way in which we perceive reality. It's not shaking it up at all. But when real hardship enters their lives, something that they can't just shake off, like great loss, or pain, or anything of this nature, you can't just shake it off. You can't just smile and make it ok. The rug has been pulled. It is groundless. Then people start asking, and seeking, and have profound wish to try out this whole path.

BILL MOYERS: There's a line somewhere. Someone says, I'm only paraphrasing it, that when an old culture is dying-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: --the new culture will be formed by men and women who are not afraid of insecurity.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Right, I just loved that when I read it, you know. It will be formed by people who are not afraid of insecurity, is that what it said?

BILL MOYERS: Afraid to be insecure. What do you take that to mean?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, just what I've been saying, you know. And this was the article of Trungpa Rinpoche, why it just sort of was like a light bulb going off. Everything else seemed to be saying look towards the good. Chant until you're in an ecstatic state. You know, like that the underlying assumption was there was something wrong, and you wanted to avoid this groundless state, or this unformed state, or this state in which you felt uneasy and queasy. And Trungpa Rinpoche is saying not at all. It's like the matrix of creative potential. The matrix of the spiritual life. It's like if we could rest there, which I suppose would be the description of enlightenment or the mystic, you know. Rest in that place, and is completely happy. That's why, you know, they always say, with someone who's very, very awake, just to use a term for enlightenment, you know, the walls could start crumbling in and they wouldn't like freak out or something. Because it would be the whole -- everything in life, anything could happen. And they're kind of ready for anything to happen. Do you see what I'm saying?

BILL MOYERS: Is that what you mean by the term the awakened heart?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah, I suppose. Awakened heart, awakened mind.

BILL MOYERS: The enlightenment the Buddhists talk of?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah. Yeah. That you could, and you see this is one of the things that drew me to Buddhism. Because the Buddha taught that everybody had the potential, without exception, every living being has the potential to awaken. You know, to wake up.

BILL MOYERS: That's intriguing to me. Because the knock on Buddhism is that, well, all of this concentration on yourself-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: The what of Buddhism--

BILL MOYERS: The knock on it. The criticisms of it.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Oh, the criticism-

BILL MOYERS: The public-- the public rap on it--

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

BILL MOYERS: Is that all this concentration on yourself feeds your personal narcissism.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Oh yeah, no. I mean, it can. It can. I mean let's just say, just because you call yourself a Buddhist, you're just as hookable as anybody else. And Buddhists can become as much fundamentalists as anybody else, you know.

BILL MOYERS: As much fundamentalist?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Sure.

BILL MOYERS: You mean that rigid mind-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yes. Yes.

BILL MOYERS: --that-- that we associate with-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: No, the whole teaching. And usually what attracts people is it teaches that otherwise, but let's just say it's so basic in us, let's just say you're a Buddhist, I'm a Buddhist. And I've been doing this for over 30 years. But when someone hurts my feelings, and puts the knife in, and I actually think that they're actually purposefully slandering me, or gossiping about me, or saying a mean word, or, I just don't come out looking so good, you know, is my first impulse to love them? No. My first thing is I get hooked. And if it wasn't for the way I'm sort of thrilled by the challenge of that, I would just bite the hook like anyone else. And most Buddhists that take, it doesn't matter. We still bite the hook, we still get towed under. And we can still, I say clobber people with our peace signs, you know. So, it really doesn't matter what religion we are. We can be a fundamentalist, or a non violent, non aggressive propagator of love in the world, and fellowship of humanity. And you see what I'm saying?

BILL MOYERS: I do. I like this notion that we all are capable of being fundamentalist.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Right.

BILL MOYERS: Because we like to be angry at other people's wrongness.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

BILL MOYERS: We all get--

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: So this is the part where I get really intrigued is I feel so passionate about wanting to teach, and live, personally live by this, and the main thing is free from fixed mind. That was a term of Trungpa Rinpoche. Free from fixed mind. Free from closed mind. Free from bigoted mind, or fundamentalist mind. And it all starts with the Shenpa. It all starts with getting hooked, you see what I'm saying. So that's where the work has to get done and no one can be naive and say, "I'm Shenpa free," you know. That might be a description of enlightenment, you know. Or maybe a description of enlightenment is Shenpa's not big problem when it happens. It's just another blurp on the radar screen, you know. But it doesn't set off the chain reaction. So we're all--

BILL MOYERS: Chain reaction?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Uh-huh.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean chain reaction?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, it's like a tightening in the stomach, or tightening of the jaw. You can see it in other people. When you're talking to them you can see that they've just been hooked. Their eyes kind of glaze over or whatever. And if it just stayed there it wouldn't be a problem. But then you just think about it, and think about it, and think about it. And it's like a chain reaction. So let's say that the Shenpa, or the charge, or the hook quality is very subtle. And then the charge gets stronger and stronger and stronger. Until you're blind, and you're able to actually harm another human being, or start a hate campaign. So it's a chain reaction. And you can actually, if you come to your senses anywhere in the chain reaction you can interrupt it. But it gets harder and harder 'cause you become more on automatic pilot. And it's like an undertow. It's very seductive.

BILL MOYERS: Was it Shantideva who said, "We, who like senseless children--"

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah. "Shrink from suffering, but love its causes."

BILL MOYERS: Yeah.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: "Shrink from suffering but love its causes." How do you interpret that?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, just recently I was with a group of people. And I quoted that, and I asked them without any teaching at all to tell me what they thought it meant. And there was this line up at the microphone. Because people, you know, they talked about everything from being alcoholic. You know, shrink from suffering, don't like the suffering. But to mask the suffering I drink again and I have more suffering. What Shantideva is really getting at is, generally speaking, nobody wants to suffer. But our means of going about getting happy are not in sync with our desire to not suffer. A basic Buddhist teaching is that sentient beings, none of them want to suffer. But their way of going about getting happy escalates the suffering. So yelling when you're angry would be an example. And I tell this story, like last year I knew that if I kept working on a project I was working on I could feel my physical health starting to deteriorate. But the adrenaline for wanting to keep writing, I was writing an article, and it was taking a long time. And the adrenaline to want to keep working was driving me beyond what was sensible in terms of long hours and so forth. And I could feel that it was making me sick. And somewhat fragile health. And so, I stopped, and I said to myself, I got up in the morning and I had said to myself before, "I'm not going to start on this project until 1:30 in the afternoon. I'm going to spend the morning meditating, walking, calming kind of things. But I got up in the morning and I found myself at the desk with the pen. First thing, you know. So I sat there, and I said, "Why are you doing this?" And then so I'm having a dialogue with myself. "I'm doing this because I equate it with satisfaction. I'll finish this paper. And that makes me feel good to think that it will be finished.' So then I said to myself, "And if you start writing now, will you feel better?" "No, I won't, because my health is starting to go." "So why are you doing it?" So I just sat there with this feeling like someone is going to have come up bodily and gag me and put a mask on me, and drag me out of the house for me not to just start. Despite the fact that I knew it wasn't good. And then I came down just 'cause I want to. You know, I already knew I was doing it for this imagined satisfaction that I knew I wouldn't get. You see, so we're kind of stuck in that place.

BILL MOYERS: Did my colleagues get to you to tell you how to get to me? How to do a public diagnosis of me? I mean did they come to you and say, "You can get him if you talk about work"? You know? No, I'm the same way.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yeah. Of course. I'm fascinated by that seductive pull. That urge to keep doing, as the Buddha would say, where your desire for satisfaction and happiness are not in sync with the methods you go about using. And then you could say the consequences, you know, of war and prejudice and so forth, they all come from that moment of the urge to do the same thing you've already done.

BILL MOYERS: Among the rolling hills and lakes of the Hudson River Valley, just 80 miles north of the clatter of New York City, sits the Omega Institute, an oasis for spiritual seekers. Pema Chödrön made a rare appearance at Omega's campus recently to teach from her book, "No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva." The teachings are based on a text written by the eighth-century Buddhist sage, Shantideva. And its contents, as Pema Chödrön explains, are remarkably relevant to modern life.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: In Tibetan, the word is Dunzi. I love this word, Dunzi. It means distractions -- distractions that just sort of, you can waste your whole life in Dunzi, you know, just, like, the lifestyle of just sort of flipping through magazines. Or -- I don't know. The thing is, what we find if we're not used to sitting quietly with ourselves and not used to meditation and not used to having any inner solitude in our lives, we find that we're very threatened by nothing happening. And we are addicted to dunzi addicted to distractions. And that's why you get on an airplane, and it's as if, I think they're just, like, terrified, what would happen if the video went off and there was no food, and we all had to sit there for the whole, you know, 1 1/2-hour flight, You know, and not have any entertainment? And, you know, all the books, you forgot your book and everything. It would be kind of interesting to see if people would, like, freak out. Because you look up -- you walk up and down the aisles, you know what everyone would do, they'd close their eyes and go to sleep. They'd just try to not be there. I try to meditate on airplanes. It is not easy, actually, because there is so much, the -- the videos are going like this, change, change, change, and there's all this electrical sound going through, and everyone is working with their little gameboys. And their little things and there's, like, so much happening in that little space, you know? Everyone's sitting in their little seats, and there's just, like, chaos. But it's all in the name of entertainment, you know, distracting you from being in this dreadful experience of being in this airplane for, you know, for however long. This lousy world, this lousy people, this lousy government, this lousy everything. Lousy weather, lousy blah blah blah blah. Pissed off, you know, it's too hot in here, it's too cold, I don't like the smell and, the person is too tall in front, and -- too fat next to me, and they're wearing perfume and I'm allergic, and just -- unnnh! So he says, the analogy is that you're barefooted, it's like being barefooted and walking across blazing-hot sand or across cut glass. Or in a field with thorns. And your feet are bare, and you say, this is just, you know, it's really hurting, it's terrible, it's too sharp, it's too painful, it's too hot. Do I have a great idea! I am just going to cover the whole, everywhere I go, I'm going to cover it with leather. And then it won't hurt my feet anymore. That's like saying, "I'm going to get rid of her and get rid of him and get the temperature right, and I'm going to ban perfume in the world and, you know, there will be no, nothing that bothers me anywhere. There -- I am going to get rid of everything, including mosquitoes, that bothers me, anywhere in the world, and then I will be a very happy, content person." We're laughing, but it's what we all do. That is how we do approach things. We think, if we could just get rid of them or cover it with leather, then our pain would go away. Well, sure, because, you know, then it wouldn't be cutting our feet anymore -- I mean, it's just logical, isn't it? But it doesn't make any sense, really. So he said, "but if you simply wrap the leather around your feet" -- in other words, shoes -- then you could walk across the boiling sand and the cut glass and the thorns, and it wouldn't bother you. So the analogy is, if you work with your mind, instead of trying to change everything on the outside, that's how your temper will cool down. * * *

BILL MOYERS: Do you look to the Buddha with the same kind of reverence that many Christians look to Jesus? Or Muslims look to Muhammad?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Yes, I do. The Buddha was a role model of what I myself can do.

BILL MOYERS: How so?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: He was an ordinary human being with hopes and fears, and Shenpa, you know ability to get hooked. And he freed himself from suffering, not from pain but from suffering. And found his ability to communicate it so that it was very stirring to people around him. And allowed other people to become free. And I believe I can also do that. And I believe everybody can also do that. So he's the role model of someone who didn't give up on himself. Didn't give up on the world. Didn't give up on other people. And freed himself from suffering. This unnecessary suffering that Shantideva refers. We shrink from suffering but love its causes. "We hurt ourselves," he says, you know. So why should others be the object of our hatred. He says what he says, not implying that we should hate ourselves, but implying that we could take responsibility for our side of what you see.

BILL MOYERS: Do you-

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: But, yes, I have great veneration for the Buddha. You know, what-

BILL MOYERS: Do you pray to him? Like Christians pray to Jesus?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: No. No I don't pray to him. Or even think of him, necessarily, as a role model. He was a person like myself that woke up the way I could, and the way all sentient beings could. But Buddha for me is that awakened mind itself. That totally open unbiased unprejudiced mind and heart. And I resonate with that. And I come back again and again to that mind and heart as the motivating factor of my life. And I think of that as you know, if you use the word Christ consciousness, you might call this Buddha consciousness, or Buddha nature. And so it's what he uncovered. It wasn't like he was reaching for something he didn't have. It was more like he had it all along. As if it was a mirror covered with dust, and he removed the dust. And then the shining mirror was always there. So he uncovered that. That's what I resonate with, my capacity to do that, and everyone's capacity to do that. So the bodhisattva says may all sentient beings be happy and free of suffering. And it means all. It doesn't mean except, you know, your list of people who you think should get there's, you know.

BILL MOYERS: By happiness, what do you mean by happiness?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Contentment. At home with yourself in your world. Not separating yourself from others. Not hardening your heart, or your mind to others, or to the world. That profound wellbeing which is not based on facts, so to speak. You know, like changing circumstances. It's not based on changing circumstances.

BILL MOYERS: How do you experience God?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: How do I experience God? You know, that in Buddhism we do not believe in God or disbelieve in God. We keep it as an open question. So I don't use the word god much. I'm not at all even slightly offended by the word god. And I know it means a lot of different things to different people. So if I had to have a definition it would be that open space of mind that allows for ultimate possibilities. And doesn't narrow down into a security based or fear based view where my way has to have precedence.

BILL MOYERS: Do you describe yourself as a person of faith?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Well, I thought about this topic, because I knew it was a subject of faith and reason. And faith was not a term that I had ever used for myself. So I gave it some thought, you know. I do have a lot of faith. But the main faith is that sentient beings have the capacity to awaken all beings. And that, given the right causes and conditions, many people who are sort of neutral, and could get caught by the sweep, or a strong seduction towards aggression could equally be swayed towards peace and love and kindness. Because people have that capacity in them. Now this isn't to say that I don't see injustice. But I think I'm more of the school of Martin Luther King, you know. Where you want beloved community, where you take the view that wanting everyone to be healed, not wanting to win your side and make the other side wrong. And, ok, underlying this would be that you want for everyone to deescalate their aggression, and not increase their aggression. And I equate that with happiness and peace in the world and so forth.

BILL MOYERS: On almost any day, well I would say on every day in New York you can experience random acts of kindness. But, after 9/11 kindness seemed to be everyone's daily behavior. I saw so much kindness. And then, of course, it didn't take too long for it to disappear.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Ok, so this is like a big view of what happens with individuals. And what we saw in New York, and you see with people who are in those states, that it's a softness, a kindness, it's as people said during those days in New York, it's the only thing that makes sense. And then what happens? The habit comes back. Because, basically, the kindness comes out of not being able to escape from groundlessness. And then, when everyone is in the same situation, you're all groundless together, the only thing that makes sense is kindness. It's so interesting, you see, this almost proves, you know, if you're going to have a proof of faith in basic goodness, that sort of proves it. Then the person who believed in basic badness would say, no, the more fundamental thing is what reasserts itself. And I would say, no, what the Buddha taught was what reasserts itself is the classic texts call it adventitious. It means removable. It's temporary. Neurosis is temporary. Sanity is permanent.

BILL MOYERS: I like that.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: But, also, I've done dialoguing, interfaith dialoguing when I was, about ten years ago I did a lot of it. And I came out of it feeling if your view is that of basic badness, you see it wherever you go. If your view is basic goodness, you see it wherever you go. And I said, I might be wrong, maybe basic badness is a fundamental state. But basic goodness makes for a much happier world. And for feeling more at home in the world, and more friendship. So I came out feeling, you know, I'm open enough to, maybe when I die, you know, some big plaque comes up and says, "You were wrong all your life. Everything you believed in your whole life is wrong." I think I'm preparing for that moment, you know, for it not to be anything that I thought it was. And it would be ok. And do you see what I'm saying?

BILL MOYERS: Have you forgiven your husband?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: Oh sure. Yeah. Well, not only forgiven him, I tell him, you know, it's a little insulting to him actually. I say, "You know, your leaving me was the best thing that ever happened to me." It's, you know, I'm not sure he's forgiven me, you know. But sure I've forgiven him because, basically, without that, it's like people who say, "I lived such a superficial life until I found out I had a disease that wasn't going to get better." Do you see what I'm saying? Not everyone uses that to get happier. But for a lot of people, when you can't get rid of it, it sort of brings you to the bottom, and that kind of positive bottom where you surrender, and then things begin to open up for you. Somebody had given me a poem, and it had a line it which was, "Softening what is rigid in your heart." Work on yourself. Work on your own aggression. And that's sewing the seeds of peace. It's not that do this and then the war will be over in Iraq. You know, it's not naive that way. But it's talking about sewing seeds of peace. And this is where the meditation comes in. People who meditate, they do become much more in tune with being able to notice that they've been hooked and then also notice what they're saying to themselves at that time to escalate the whole thing. In other words, it does give you more clarity about what's going on with you.

BILL MOYERS: After over 30 years on this path of enlightenment when you took that vow to be a nun, do you feel you're close to a state of perfection?

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: No. No. I'm happy. I'm very happy. I feel satisfied with my life. If I died tomorrow, I'd feel I hadn't wasted my life. But my appetite is insatiable, and I feel I have a long way to go, you know, in terms of perfection.

BILL MOYERS: Who was the Zen master who told his student, "All of you are perfect, and you could use a little improvement."

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: That's was Suzuki Roshi. Yeah. "All of you are perfect, and you could use a little improvement." Yeah. So, you know, one of the things with the bodhisattva warrior, they say that "No matter how far you get in terms of being unhooked yourself, or being happy yourself, or always look back at who you used to be. Never forget to look back at the neurosis that you carried for so many years. Otherwise you'll lose your contact with the suffering of other people." So for the bodhisattva warrior, our kinship with each other is the crucial thing, you know. So it isn't that really you want to avoid the pain of the world, because that educates you about what other people are up against. But the suffering. When I remember earlier I tried to distinguish between pain and suffering? And that suffering is what could lessen, and there could be a sensation of suffering. So you're not trying to tell people that then there'll be no bad more things happening to good people. But that the good people will relate to things in a way that doesn't escalate their suffering, and therefore the suffering of those around them.

BILL MOYERS: Pema Chödrön, thank you very much for being with me.

PEMA CHÖDRÖN: It was my complete pleasure. And thank you. I feel very honored. Very honored to have had this chance to be with you.

BILL MOYERS: And I. Thank you so much.


Source: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason107_print.html

Pema Chodron Quotes - How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

“No … big … deal.” He wasn’t saying “bad,” and he wasn’t saying “good.” He was saying that these things happen and they can transform your life, but at the same time don’t make too big a deal of them, because that leads to arrogance and pride, or a sense of specialness. On the other hand, making too big a deal about your difficulties takes you in the other direction; it takes you into poverty, self-denigration, and a low opinion of yourself.”
― Pema Chödrön, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

“In other words, you could endlessly try to have suffering cease by dealing with outer circumstances—and that’s usually what all of us do. It is the usual approach; you just try to solve the outer problem again and again and again. But the Buddha said something quite revolutionary, which most of us don’t really buy: if you work with your mind, you will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside. When something is bothering you—a person is bugging you, a situation is irritating you, or physical pain is troubling you—you must work with your mind, and that is done through meditation. Working with our minds is the only means through which we’ll actually begin to feel happy and contented with the world that we live in.”
― Pema Chödrön, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

“The principle of nowness is very important to any effort to establish an enlightened society. You may wonder what the best approach is to helping society and how you can know that what you are doing is authentic and good. The only answer is nowness. The way to relax, or rest the mind in nowness, is through the practice of meditation. In meditation you take an unbiased approach. You let things be as they are, without judgment, and in that way you yourself learn to be. —CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE”
― Pema Chödrön, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

“The principle of nowness is very important to any effort to establish an enlightened society.”
― Pema Chödrön, How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

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Pema Chodron Quotes - No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva

“In order to work with difficult outer circumstances, we need to gather our inner strength. If even ten or twenty minutes of meditation a day helps us to do this, let's go for it!”
― Pema Chödrön, No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva

“Making good use of our limited time - the limited time from birth to death, as well as our limited time each day - is the key to developing inner steadiness and calm.”
― Pema Chödrön, No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva

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Pema Chodron Quotes - Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“Words themselves are neutral. It's the charge we add to them that matters”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, “The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“When things fall apart and we can’t get the pieces back together, when we lose something dear to us, when they whole thing is just not working and we don’t know what to do, this is the time when the natural warmth of tenderness, the warmth of empathy and kindness, are just waiting to be uncovered, just waiting to be embraced. This is our chance to come out of our self-protecting bubble and to realize that we are never alone. This is our chance to finally understand that wherever we go, everyone we meet is essentially just like us. Our own suffering, if we turn toward it, can open us to a loving relationship with the world.”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises. Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

“When we feel dread, when we feel discomfort of any kind, it can connect us at the heart with all the other people feeling dread and discomfort. We can pause and touch into dread. We can touch bitterness of rejection and the rawness of being slighted. Whether we are at home or in a public spot or caught in a traffic jam or walking into a movie, we can stop and look at the other people there and realize that in pain and in joy they are just like me. Just like me they don’t want to feel physical pain or insecurity or rejection. Just like me they want to feel respected and physically comfortable.”
― Pema Chödrön, Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

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