Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living

Pema Chödrön's perennially helpful guide to transforming the pains and difficulties in our lives into opportunities for genuine joy and personal growth

We all want to be fearless, joyful, and fully alive. And we all know that it’s not so easy. We’re bombarded every day with false promises of ways to make our lives better—buy this, go here, eat this, don’t do that; the list goes on and on. But Pema Chödrön shows that, until we get to the heart of who we are and really make friends with ourselves, everything we do will always be superficial. Here she offers down-to-earth guidance on how we can go beyond the fleeting attempts to “fix” our pain and, instead, to take our lives as they are as the only path to achieve what we all yearn for most deeply—to embrace rather than deny the difficulties of our lives. These teachings, framed around fifty-nine traditional Tibetan Buddhist maxims, point us directly to our own hearts and minds, such as “Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment,” “Be grateful to everyone,” and “Don’t expect applause.” By working with these slogans as everyday meditations, Start Where You Are shows how we can all develop the courage to work with our own inner pain and discover true joy, holistic well-being, and unshakeable confidence.

• Pema Chödrön's Compassion Cards: Teachings for Awakening the Heart in Everyday Life
• The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
• Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears
• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
• The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness
• Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness
• Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion
• Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change
• How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind
• The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)