About the Book
Happiness is your birthright--and it is readily available at any given 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, Pema Chödrön guides us through simple yet effective practices that show us how to recognize and nurture these moments of delight, cultivating them until they become more and more frequent, accessible, and real. Recorded at Gampo Abbey Monastery in Nova Scotia,
True Happiness features highlights from Sounds True's full-length audio learning course of the same title, and gives you the opportunity to absorb the teachings of Pema Chödrön at your own pace. Join this bestselling author and beloved teacher for classical meditations and practices to dissolve the barriers to your heart, reconnect with your basic goodness, and cultivate a sense of happiness--by learning to enter natural windows of spaciousness that open us to freedom.
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.
