True Happiness: Cultivating a Life of Unconditional Joy and the Power to Benefit Others
About this audiobook
Uncover the Roots of Happiness with Pema Chödrön
Happiness is your birthright, readily available at any moment, teaches Pema Chödrön. 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.” On True Happiness, the bestselling author and teacher guides you through the practices to help you recognize and nurture those moments of delight, cultivating them until they become more and more frequent and accessible as a constant influence on our lives.
Soften Into the Deepest Place of Joy
At the root of everything is “basic goodness”—a Buddhist view that each of us is fundamentally awake and compassionate—yet we tend to look at ourselves from a place of “badness.” We spend our lives in self-doubt and confusion, attempting to be perfect and “get it right.” But life is about opening to whatever arises, including feelings of uneasiness as well as contentment and peace. Rather than asking “How can I get out of this?”—ask, “How can I stay in this moment of discomfort and begin to soften?” It is here that you will find your open heart, teaches Ani Pema. “Everyone has the longing to feel the open heart, because it is a deep happiness that can never be taken away.”
Recorded at Gampo Abbey Monastery in Nova Scotia, True Happiness guides you through seven hours of effective meditations and practices to dissolve the barriers to your heart, reconnect with the source of basic goodness, and cultivate a sense of happiness—if only to touch upon it for brief but precious moments at a time.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Lovingkindness toward yourself as an act of courage
• Metta meditation for cultivating happiness
• How to develop a strong determination to dissolve habits that block your innate wisdom
• Creating the causes and conditions for habits to dissolve, confusion to disappear, and happiness to arise
• Choosing an outlook that supports your happiness
• The three levels of courage
• The Four R’s—Recognition, Refrain, Remedial Action, and Resolve—and how to use these tools for awakening
Discover more
About the author
Pema Chödrön
Ani Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City. She attended Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. Pema has two children and three grandchildren.
While in her mid-thirties, Ani Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years. She became a novice nun in 1974 while studying with Lama Chime in London. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to Scotland at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him.
Pema first met her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Rinpoche, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.
Ani Pema served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado, until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for Western monks and nuns.
Ani Pema currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.
Ani Pema is interested in helping establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with Western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. Her nonprofit, The Pema Chödrön Foundation, was set up to assist in this purpose.
She has written several books: The Wisdom of No Escape, Start Where You Are, When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, No Time to Lose, Practicing Peace in Times of War, How to Meditate, and Living Beautifully. All are available from Shambhala Publications and Sounds True.
