Week 14 · eastern

Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön became a Buddhist nun after her second husband told her he was having an affair. She was sitting in her car when she heard the news, and she says the world just stopped making sense. Out of that devastation, she found her way to Chögyam Trungpa, a Tibetan teacher, and eventually became the first American woman fully ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Her entire body of teaching comes from that original heartbreak.

“"The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently." She said "honestly and gently" in the same sentence. Most people only manage one.”