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Description edit
Start Where You Are is an indispensable handbook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart. With insight and humor, Pema Chödrön presents down-to-earth guidance on how we can "start where we are"—embracing rather than denying the painful aspects of our lives. Pema... read more
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“Karma can easily be misunderstood. People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means they did something bad and they’re being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need in order to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to learn how to open further.“I saw a cartoon that describes this. A head of iceberg lettuce is sitting in a garden saying, “Oh, no, how did I get in this vegetable garden again? I wanted to be a wildflower!” The caption reads, “Oscar is born again as a head of iceberg lettuce in order to overcome his fear of being eaten.””
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True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.
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With our minds we make a big deal out of ourselves, out of our pain, and out of our problems.
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Affirmations are like screaming that you’re okay in order to overcome this whisper that you’re not. That’s a big contrast to actually uncovering the whisper, realizing that it’s passing memory, and moving closer to all those fears and all those edgy feelings that maybe you’re not okay. Well, no big deal. None of us is okay and all of us are fine. It’s not just one way. We are walking, talking paradoxes.
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“Regard all dharmas as dreams.” More simply, regard everything as a dream. Life is a dream. Death is also a dream, for that matter; waking is a dream and sleeping is a dream. Another way to put this is, “Every situation is a passing memory.”
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One way to pull out your own rug is by just letting go, lightening up, being more gentle, and not making such a big deal.
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Compassion and openness and clarity are all one thing, and this one thing is called bodhichitta.
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This book stresses repeatedly that it is unconditional compassion for ourselves that leads naturally to unconditional compassion for others.
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This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky—that’s called enlightenment, liberation.
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The basic message of the lojong teachings is that if it’s painful, you can learn to hold your seat and move closer to that pain. Reverse the usual pattern, which is to split, to escape. Go against the grain and hold your seat. Lojong introduces a different attitude toward unwanted stuff: if it’s painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
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The moral of the story is, when the resistance is gone, so are the demons.
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Setting & Locations edit
First Sentence edit
WE ALREADY HAVE EVERYTHING WE NEED.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Pema Chödrön (Author)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 294.3444
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