This practical introduction to Buddhism focuses on the application of Buddhist psychology to modern life. Thubten Chodron, an American Buddhist nun, presents the basic points of this path for understanding ourselves and improving the quality of our lives. In a straightforward style and with warmth and humor, Chodron gives us the fundamental points of the Buddha's teaching on transforming habitual attitudes and realizing our full human potential.

Open Heart, Clear Mind: An Introduction to the Buddha's Teachings

Chödron, Thubten

Religion & Spirituality

Snow Lion

This user’s guide to Buddhist basics takes the most commonly asked questions—beginning with “What is the essence of the Buddha’s teachings?”—and provides simple answers in plain English. Thubten Chodron’s responses to the questions that always seem to arise among people approaching Buddhism make this an exceptionally complete and accessible introduction—as well as a manual for living a more peaceful, mindful, and satisfying Life. Buddhism for Beginners is an ideal first book on the subject for anyone, but it’s also a wonderful resource for seasoned students, since the question-and-answer format makes it easy to find just the topic you’re looking for, such as: • What is the goal of the Buddhist path? • What is karma? • If all phenomena are empty, does that mean nothing exists? • How can we deal with fear? • How do I establish a regular meditation practice? • What are the qualities I should look for in a teacher? • What is Buddha-nature? • Why can't we remember our past lives?

Buddhism for Beginners

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Alternative Medicine

Anger plagues all of us on a personal, national, and international level. Yet we see people, such as the Dalai Lama, who have faced circumstances far worse than many of us have faced—including exile, persecution, and the loss of many loved ones—but who do not burn with rage or seek revenge. How do they do it? Working with Anger presents a variety of Buddhist methods for subduing and preventing anger not by changing what is happening, but by framing it differently. No matter what our religion, learning to work with our anger is effective for everyone seeking personal happiness as well as world peace. Working with Anger was chosen for a Spirituality and Health Magazine Award as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2001.

Working with Anger

Mental Health

We all wish to gain greater understanding of ourselves. This ideal follow-up to the author's extremely popular Buddhism for Beginners explains in clear and simple language the essence of Buddhist philosophy and psychology together with practical tools for immediate implementation in our daily lives.We all want to have good relationships with others. Chodron offers practical techniques to help us gain a more spacious perspective on relationships, whether they be between lovers, parent and child, employer and employee, friends, or spiritual teacher and student. Guidelines are given for how to practice freeing ourselves from habitually blaming others for our problems and learning to be on the spot and take responsibility for our lives. This book describes how our mind/heart, not the external world, is the ultimate source of our happiness. We learn how to look at people and situations in an entirely new light. The book concludes with a discussion of common misconceptions about Buddhism. The author's down-to-earth language and examples invite us not only to engage the material but to implement it in our own lives. The author's open-minded approach makes this book suitable for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.

Taming the Mind

The beloved deity Tara is the feminine embodiment of enlightenment. For centuries practitioners have turned to her for protection from both external and internal dangers, from fire to arrogance. This well-written book presented in conversational style is an authoritative guide to the practice of Tara. It includes very helpful chapters on the whys and hows of various Tara practices as well as a commentary on the "Homage to the Twenty-one Taras."

How To Free Your Mind: Tara The Liberator

Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara / Kuan Yin) is not only Tibet’s patron deity, he also is the embodiment of the compassion of all the Buddhas and as such is deemed the best possible contemplative gateway to the cultivation of compassion. In this book, which has received high praise from monastics and lay Buddhist scholars alike, the American-born nun Ven. Thubten Chodron lucidly and engagingly elucidates the Tibetan Buddhist yoga of Chenrezig. Her explanations are based not only on scriptural but also oral teachings, which makes them eminently authoritative and practical. Essentially, Cultivating a Compassionate Heart is a knowledgeable, highly practical, and fairly extensive commentary on the Chenrezig sadhana. The book starts with the Thousand-Armed Chenrezig visualization and the preliminary prayers found in most sadhanas and the long mantra of Chenrezig. Only then does the author proceed to explaining the various concepts that make up the theoretical underpinnings of this extraordinary practice.

Cultivating a Compassionate Heart: The Yoga Method of Chenrezig

It can be hard for those of us living in the twenty-first century to see how fourteenth-century Buddhist teachings still apply. When you’re trying to figure out which cell phone plan to buy or brooding about something someone wrote about you on Facebook, lines like “While the enemy of your own anger is unsubdued, though you conquer external foes, they will only increase” can seem a little obscure. Thubten Chodron’s illuminating explication of Togmay Zangpo’s revered text, The Thirty-seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, doesn’t just explain its profound meaning; in dozens of passages she lets her students and colleagues share first-person stories of the ways that its teachings have changed their lives. Some bear witness to dramatic transformations—making friends with an enemy prisoner-of-war, finding peace after the murder of a loved one—while others tell of smaller lessons, like waiting for something to happen or coping with a minor injury.

Don't Believe Everything You Think: Living with Wisdom and Compassion

Self-Help

Personal Transformation

Tara, the feminine embodiment of enlightened activity, is a Buddhist deity whose Tibetan name means "liberator," signaling her ability to liberate beings from the delusion and ignorance that keep them trapped in ever-recurring patterns of negativity. She embodies a challenge—to transform our minds and become like her, whose tranquility, compassion, and wisdom make her so beautiful—but one that is profoundly nurturing. In the author's words, "We can relax in her presence and look at ourselves honestly, knowing that Tara will not judge, reject, or abandon us due to our shortcomings. Like a mother, she sees her child's potential—in this case, our spiritual potential or Buddha-nature—and wants to nurture it." Ven. Chodron describes a simple meditation on Tara, explaining its benefits and its application to daily life. She then presents two well-loved praises to Tara, together with reflections on their meanings for modern practitioners. Included here are the "Homage to the Twenty-one Taras," verses that are frequently chanted in Tibetan monasteries and homes, and "A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible," by Lama Lobsang Tenpey Gyaltsen.

How to Free Your Mind: The Practice of Tara the Liberator

Worship & Devotion

A beloved Buddhist teacher and a psychologist specializing in Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) provide practical methods for living a life filled with compassion. A life overflowing with compassion. It sounds wonderful in theory, but how do you do it? This guide provides practical methods to living with this wonderful quality, based on traditional Buddhist teachings and on methods from modern psychology--particularly a technique called Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT). The methods presented by the two authors--a psychotherapist and a Tibetan Buddhist nun--turn out to have a good deal in common. In fact, they complement each other in wonderful ways. Each of the 64 short chapters ends with a reflection or exercise for putting compassion into practice in various life situations.

An Open-Hearted Life: Transformative Methods for Compassionate Living from a Clinical Psychologist and a Buddhist Nun

Kolts, Russell

Psychology & Counseling

Shambhala

Training the mind in the habit of happiness--enlightening commentary on a classic Tibetan Buddhist teaching poem by a popular modern teaching nun. Lojong, or "mind-training" is a practice that has gained astonishing popularly in recent years--because it works in transforming hearts and minds. Here is a presentation of lojong teachings that predates the "slogan" practice with which people have become so familiar through the books of Pema Chödrön and others, and that is every bit as powerful for imbuing the mind with intelligence and the heart with compassion. It is Thubten Chodron's commentary on a Tibetan poem with the imposing title "Wheel of Sharp Weapons." It is, as the title of this book indicates, an explanation of how karma works in our lives. But in explaining how to create good karma and avoid the negative effects of bad karma, it shows us how to live our lives with kindness and honesty--which makes things better not only for ourselves, but also for everyone else in the world.

Good Karma: How to Create the Causes of Happiness and Avoid the Causes of Suffering

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