Pema Chödrön

“Trying to find absolute rights and wrongs is a trick we play on ourselves to feel secure and comfortable.”

In keeping with the spirit of Pema Chödrön's work, I’ve decided to break my usual rules (one book - one review) and write a single reflection encompassing The Wisdom of No Escape, When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, and Living Beautifully. Because you can take the girl out of school, but you can never fully take school out of the girl.

Chödrön’s overarching themes are that we should be kind (not least toward ourselves) and be present. If we can manage those imperatives, everything else will fall into place. To accomplish this, we must learn to let go. Let go of our ideas about ourselves, about other people, about the past (i.e., no regrets), and the future, and most of all about life and how it ‘should’ be. To do these things, we must forge a path that allows for the confidence to live life without a game plan, to surrender to life when our plans are upset and to instead embrace the possibilities of what – and who – might appear in our mandala (LB).

More than esoteric advice (honestly, even four books in, the various vows, commitments, meditation postures, and spiritual teachers form an indistinguishable mass), I appreciated Chödrön most in storytelling mode. She cites everyone and everything from ancient Chinese proverbs (“The truth is like a dog yearning over a bowl of burning oil. He can’t leave it, because it is too desirable, and he can’t lick it because it is too hot.” WTFA) to Steve Jobs: (“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of think you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” LB)

Chödrön also pulls broadly from the Native American tradition, both old and new (advice from Hopi elders: we are in a fast flowing river and must not cling to the shore, but push off into the middle of the river, see who else is with us, and celebrate and from Chief Seattle “Our planet is in great trouble, and if we keep carrying old grudges and do not work together, we will all die.”- LB) I think he – and she – means dies sooner, but that’s beside the point. 

Where others can come across as harsh (yes, Tolle, you), Chödrön is both practical and ever gentle. For example, she readily acknowledges that “none of what we’ve learned seems very relevant when our lover leaves us, when our child has a tantrum in the supermarket, when we’re insulted by our colleague” (WTFA). In gentle mode, Chödrön reminds her reader of the importance of putting one foot in front of the other and not being discouraged by falling flat (PTSY). 

For with her, the goal is not change, per se, but acceptance. “Our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to,” she reminds us. “It’s who we are right now and that’s what we can make friends with and celebrate.” (WNE) It’s not that she doesn’t want her reader to become a better version of themselves; she does. It’s just that Chödrön also recognizes that when we fight our true selves, we lose every time. We can try to be more peaceful, more calm, more anything, but at the end of the day, we each have an essential nature. Failure to recognize that – to listen to our intuition – exacts a steep price. (WTFA)

Hope and fear are two of her consistent themes. Specifically, Chödrön addresses the need to both overcome fear in order to live a more authentic life and to leave hope aside, for when we hold on to hope, we are robbed of the present moment. Our fears she classifies regularly as demons or dragons and reminds us that we are destined to fight those same demons and dragons until we learn the lessons they have come to teach us. (WNE) Hope and fear – opposite sides of the same coin – are my chief currency. HMU, baby.

Chödrön never uses the term inertia, but as I think of her urgings to confront fear and not be the baby bird, remaining in the nest long past time (PTSY), I’m reminded how, in my first real job, as I debated whether to take a different role, an older colleague took me aside and said, “inertia is a powerful force – you always need to fight it.” It’s the best advice I’ve ever received, and I think of that colleague every time I make a hard decision against the pull of inertia. 

In Living Beautifully, Chödrön writes “We can dance with life when it’s a wild party completely out of control, and we can dance with life when it’s as tender as a lover.” And while I like the imagery, what it doesn't capture is that, at least in my experience, life can often be simultaneously tender and wild....and that, just as sneaking off with a lover into the corner while the party rages all around heightens both experiences, so does the confluence of tender and wild make for some of the most textured moments in life.

And so: accept ourselves and our lives as we and they are. Start with our well laid plans, but know that sooner or later life will blow them apart (PTSY). Avoid the trap that there is ample time to do things later and recognize that we will never get it all together, whatever ‘all’ may be. After all, “Anything could happen. Now is a very uncertain time.” (WNE) To which I say: tell me about it.