How to Meditate with Pema Chodron: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind

***How to Meditate Has Been Named One of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2013*** Pema Chodron is treasured around the world for her unique ability to transmit teachings and practices that bring peace, understanding, and compassion into our lives.   With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan nun presents her first program exploring in depth what she considers the essentials for a lifelong practice. When we look for a meditation teacher, we want someone who has an intimate knowledge of the path. That's why so many have turned to Pema Chödrön, whose gentle yet straightforward guidance has been a lifesaver for both first-time and experienced meditators.   More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, compassion, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning.  “How to Meditate” was recorded live, on retreat, at Gombo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada, over the course of a five-week retreat/ meditation program.   Through five CDs of traditional insights and her personal guidance in 12 sitting sessions, Pema Chodron will help you honestly meet and compassionately relate with your mind as you explore:

•  The basics of meditation, from getting settled and the six points of posture to learning to settle to breathing and relaxation
•  Gentleness, patience, and humor—three ingredients for a well-balanced practice
•  The Seven Delights-how moments of difficulty can become doorways to awakening and love
•  Shamatha (or calm abiding), the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises
• Thoughts and emotions as "sheer delight"-instead of obstacles-in meditation

  Here is in indispensable program from the meditation teacher who remains a first choice for students the world over. “From my own experience and from listening to many people over the years, I’ve tried to offer here what I feel are the essential points of mediation,” explains Pema Chodron.  Now this beloved voice shares with you her accessible approach—simple and down to earth while informed by the highest traditions of Tibetan Buddhism on How to Meditate with Pema Chodron.   Disc One

1. Introduction
2. Becoming your own meditation instructor
3. The cause of suffering
4. Working with your mind
5. Learning to settle
6. Start with awareness
7. Working with posture
8. Being faithful to the technique
9. Meditation:  Being present

  Disc Two

1. Introduction
2. Our habitual patterns
3. Being right here
4. Meditation:  Coming back to the breath
5. Coming back into presence
6. Meditation:  Finding balance
7. Attention and relaxation
8. Discursive thought
9. Gentleness, patience, and humor
10. Meditation:  Relaxation

  Disc Three  

1. Introduction
2. Meditation:  Faithful to being present
3. Training in letting go
4. Uncovering Buddha nature
5. Meditation: Uncovering Buddha nature
6. Refreshing Your Body
7. Waiting for a thought to occur
8. Meditation:  Waiting, occurrence, dissolve
9. Suggestions for your practice

  Disc Four  

1. Introduction
2. Balancing and settling
3. Meditation:  working with thoughts
4. Fixation and the thinking process
5. Experiencing your emotions
6. Working with unfavorable conditions
7. Go to your body
8. Bringing up a strong emotion
9. Meditation:  Working the feeling

  Disc Five  

1. Introduction
2. Fully here
3. No problem except identifying
4. Six sense perceptions
5. Non-dualistic experience
6. Meditation:  Undivided awareness
7. Noticing when we go off
8. Meditation:  working with sight
9. Meditation:  working with touch

    “Pema is one of our most beloved and helpful teachers—practical, compassionate, and wise.  How to Meditate is a great way to take her teachings to heart and develop a meditation practice.” —Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart and A Lamp in the Darkness   “This is a great compilation of meditation instruction which she has personal given to many of her students over the years.  These instructions have brought so much help to others that it has made her one of the most loved and revered Buddhist teacher in this modern world.  With a brilliant mind and an absolutely cheerful attitude toward life, she practices what she teaches.” —Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche