The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
by: Pema Chodron
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Amazon.com Review:
Pema Chödrön may have more good one-liners than a Groucho Marxretrospective, but this nun's stingers go straight to the heart: "Theessence of bravery is being without self-deception"; "When we practicegenerosity, we become intimate with our grasping"; "Difficult peopleare the greatest teachers." These are the punctuations to specificteachings of fearlessness.In The Places That Scare You,Chödrön introduces a host of the compassionate warriors' tools andconcepts for transforming anxieties and negative emotions intopositive living. Rather than steeling ourselves against hardship, shesuggests we open ourselves to vulnerability; from this comes theloving kindness and compassion that are the wellsprings of joy. How dowe achieve it? Through meditation, mindfulness, slogans, aspiration,and several other practices, such as tonglen, which is takingin the pain and suffering of others while sending out happiness toall--emphasis on the all. Chödrön introduces each of thesepractices in turn, backing them up with succinct practical reasoningand a framework of ideas that offers fresh interpretations of familiarwords like strength, laziness, and groundlessness.Chödrön is thetype of person you'd like to have with you in an emergency, and todeal with the extremes of daily life. In her absence, The PlacesThat Scare You will do nicely. --Brian Bruya
Product Description:
We always have a choice, Pema Chödrön teaches: We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us and make us increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. Here Pema provides the tools to deal with the problems and difficulties that life throws our way. This wisdom is always available to us, she teaches, but we usually block it with habitual patterns rooted in fear. Beyond that fear lies a state of openheartedness and tenderness. This book teaches us how to awaken our basic goodness and connect with others, to accept ourselves and others complete with faults and imperfections, and to stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is.
Pema Chödrön may have more good one-liners than a Groucho Marxretrospective, but this nun's stingers go straight to the heart: "Theessence of bravery is being without self-deception"; "When we practicegenerosity, we become intimate with our grasping"; "Difficult peopleare the greatest teachers." These are the punctuations to specificteachings of fearlessness.In The Places That Scare You,Chödrön introduces a host of the compassionate warriors' tools andconcepts for transforming anxieties and negative emotions intopositive living. Rather than steeling ourselves against hardship, shesuggests we open ourselves to vulnerability; from this comes theloving kindness and compassion that are the wellsprings of joy. How dowe achieve it? Through meditation, mindfulness, slogans, aspiration,and several other practices, such as tonglen, which is takingin the pain and suffering of others while sending out happiness toall--emphasis on the all. Chödrön introduces each of thesepractices in turn, backing them up with succinct practical reasoningand a framework of ideas that offers fresh interpretations of familiarwords like strength, laziness, and groundlessness.Chödrön is thetype of person you'd like to have with you in an emergency, and todeal with the extremes of daily life. In her absence, The PlacesThat Scare You will do nicely. --Brian Bruya
Product Description:
We always have a choice, Pema Chödrön teaches: We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us and make us increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder. Here Pema provides the tools to deal with the problems and difficulties that life throws our way. This wisdom is always available to us, she teaches, but we usually block it with habitual patterns rooted in fear. Beyond that fear lies a state of openheartedness and tenderness. This book teaches us how to awaken our basic goodness and connect with others, to accept ourselves and others complete with faults and imperfections, and to stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- A wonderful book for being comfortable with life
The places that scare you aren't a haunted house, but the real things that happen to people, such as dealing with sickness, lonliness, or financial hardships.We all experience them, as Pema says, and this book helps you learn that it is all part of everyone's life, and how to not only become able to handle such things, but to use them to help the world feel more compassion.
Rating: 
- love this book
this book is a compilation of quotes to live by. If you're looking for purpose and clarity she says the words you can say.
Rating: - Don't be scared to read or listen to it
In a nutshell, if you don't want to bring awareness to the places in yourself you avoid and would rather not deal with awakening, do not listen to or read this book.
If you are interested in a brilliantly written perspective on compassionate spiritual awakening, then by all means get it and listen or read it over and over. We are so blessed to live in a time where we have teachers like Pema Chodron to give us instruction on how to bring awareness to our habitual thinking that keep us ... Read More
Rating: 
- impossible
There is something repellant, even repulsive, about the religious mind.We cannot escape the world, however much we dislike it: it is a violent, often ugly place, dominated by the stupid;and however far we flee from it, these unpleasantries inevitably find us out, we cannot run far enough or fast enough.Show me your attachment to the beautiful and the good, indeed, show me your love of peace, and I will show you beauty adulterated and good compromised; and I will expose your peace as a forgery ... Read More
Rating: - Calming, inspiring reminder...
I love listening to this tape.I put it on and start it over again when it is done.I find it totally inspiring to listen to the writing of this wise Buddhist monk.
My only criticism is that the woman who reads the book (beautiful voice, by the way).She pronounces the word "strength" omitting the 'g' sound.This was horribly annoying to me.I grew up pronouncing the 'g' and it sounds prissy and pompous to omit the 'g' sound.
- A wonderful book for being comfortable with lifeThe places that scare you aren't a haunted house, but the real things that happen to people, such as dealing with sickness, lonliness, or financial hardships.We all experience them, as Pema says, and this book helps you learn that it is all part of everyone's life, and how to not only become able to handle such things, but to use them to help the world feel more compassion.
- love this bookthis book is a compilation of quotes to live by. If you're looking for purpose and clarity she says the words you can say.
- Don't be scared to read or listen to itIn a nutshell, if you don't want to bring awareness to the places in yourself you avoid and would rather not deal with awakening, do not listen to or read this book.
If you are interested in a brilliantly written perspective on compassionate spiritual awakening, then by all means get it and listen or read it over and over. We are so blessed to live in a time where we have teachers like Pema Chodron to give us instruction on how to bring awareness to our habitual thinking that keep us ... Read More
- impossibleThere is something repellant, even repulsive, about the religious mind.We cannot escape the world, however much we dislike it: it is a violent, often ugly place, dominated by the stupid;and however far we flee from it, these unpleasantries inevitably find us out, we cannot run far enough or fast enough.Show me your attachment to the beautiful and the good, indeed, show me your love of peace, and I will show you beauty adulterated and good compromised; and I will expose your peace as a forgery ... Read More
- Calming, inspiring reminder...I love listening to this tape.I put it on and start it over again when it is done.I find it totally inspiring to listen to the writing of this wise Buddhist monk.
My only criticism is that the woman who reads the book (beautiful voice, by the way).She pronounces the word "strength" omitting the 'g' sound.This was horribly annoying to me.I grew up pronouncing the 'g' and it sounds prissy and pompous to omit the 'g' sound.
