Pema Chödrön

Pema Chödrön
At the Omega Institute, May 2007.
Religion	Vajrayana Buddhism
Personal
Born	(1936-07-14) July 14, 1936 (age 78) New York City, New York, United States
Senior posting
Title	Bhikkhuni

Pema Chödrön (born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown on July 14, 1936) is a notable American figure in Tibetan Buddhism. A disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she is an ordained nun,^[1] author, and teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage Trungpa founded.

A prolific author, she has conducted workshops, seminars, and meditation retreats in Europe, Australia, and throughout North America. She is resident and teacher of Gampo Abbey, a monastery on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.^[2]

History

Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936 in New York City. She attended Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and grew up on a farm in the countryside with an older brother and sister.^[3] She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as an elementary school teacher in California and New Mexico before her conversion to Buddhism.

Following a second divorce, Chödrön began to study with Lama Chime Rinpoche in the French Alps.
She became a Buddhist nun in 1974 while studying with him in London.^[4] She is a fully ordained bhikṣuṇī in a combination of the Mulasarvastivadin and Dharmaguptaka lineages of vinaya, having received full ordination in Hong Kong in 1981 at the behest of the sixteenth Karmapa. She was probably the first American woman to become fully ordained.^[5] She has been instrumental in trying to reestablish full ordination for nuns in the Mulasarvastivadin order, to which all Tibetan Buddhist monastics have traditionally belonged; various conferences have been convened to study the matter.
Chödrön first met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1972 and, at the urging of Chime Rinpoche, took him as her root guru. She studied with him from 1974 until his death in 1987.^[6][7] Trungpa's son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, appointed Chödrön an acharya (senior teacher) shortly after assuming leadership of his father's Shambhala lineage in 1992.

Trungpa appointed Chödrön director of the Boulder Shambhala Center (then Boulder Dharmadhatu) in Colorado in the early 1980s.^[8] It was during this period that she became ill with chronic fatigue syndrome. Chödrön moved to Gampo Abbey in 1984 and became its director in 1986.^[2] There she published her first two books. Her health gradually improved, she claims, with the help of a homeopath and careful attention to diet.

In late 2005, Chödrön published No Time to Lose, a commentary on Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. She published Practicing Peace in Times of War in 2006.

Present

Pema Chödrön is a member of The Committee of Western Bhikshunis, which was formed in 2005.^[9]
She is currently studying with the Venerable Lama Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, and spends seven months of each year in solitary retreat under his direction in Crestone, Colorado.^[10]

Chödrön continues to teach the traditional Yarne (Tib. rainy season; Sanskrit: Vassāvāsa^[11]) retreat for monastics at Gampo Abbey each winter. In recent years, she has spent the summers teaching on the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life in Berkeley. A central theme of her teachings is the belief in shenpa,^[12][13][14] the Tibetan word for "attachment", which she interprets as the moment one is hooked into a cycle of habitual negative or self-destructive actions and thought. Shenpa, or getting "hooked," according to Chödrön, occurs as a response to a comment, situation or other stimulus that is similar or related to past experiences.^[13] She asserts that often, the past experiences are negative, leading to a pattern of self-destructive thought and behaviors, such as excessive eating or drinking or angry outbursts:

Somebody says a mean word to you and then something in you tightens — that's the shenpa. Then it starts to spiral into low self-esteem, or blaming them, or anger at them, denigrating yourself. And maybe if you have strong addictions, you just go right for your addiction to cover over the bad feeling that arose when that person said that mean word to you. This is a mean word that gets you, hooks you. Another mean word may not affect you but we're talking about where it touches that sore place — that's a shenpa. Someone criticizes you — they criticize your work, they criticize your appearance, they criticize your child — and, shenpa: almost co-arising.^[15]

Personal life

Chödrön has two children and three grandchildren.

Bibliography

Pema Chödrön giving talk from her book "No Time to Lose"

Books

• The Wisdom of No Escape And The Path of Loving-Kindness. Shambhala Publications, 1991. ISBN 1-57062-872-6
• Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living. Shambhala Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-87773-880-7
• Awakening Loving-Kindness (abridged version of The Wisdom of No Escape). Shambhala Publications, 1996. ISBN 1-57062-259-0
• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Element Books, 1996. ISBN 1-57062-969-2
• Tonglen: The Path of Transformation. Vajradhatu Publications, 2001. ISBN 1-57062-409-7
• Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion. Shambhala Publications, 2003. ISBN 1-59030-078-5
• The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times. Shambhala Publications, 2007. ISBN 1-57062-409-7
• No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva. Shambhala Publications, 2007. ISBN 1-59030-424-1
• The Pocket Pema Chödrön. Shambhala Pocket Classics, 2008. ISBN 1-59030-651-1
• Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears. Shambhala Publications, 2010. ISBN 1-59030-843-1
• How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind. Sounds True, 2013. ISBN 1-60407-933-9
• Noble Heart: A Self-Guided Retreat on Befriending Your Obstacles. Audio Book, 1998. ISBN 1-56455-576-3

References

1. Jump up ^ Ani Pema Chödrön
2. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} Susan Neunzig Cahill (1996). Wise Women: Over Two Thousand Years of Spiritual Writing by Women. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 377. ISBN 0-393-03946-3. 
3. Jump up ^ Haas, Michaela (2013). "Dakini Power: Twelve Extraordinary Women Shaping the Transmission of Tibetan Buddhism in the West". Snow Lion. ISBN 1559394072, p. 123.
4. Jump up ^ Fabrice Midal (2005). Recalling Chögyam Trungpa. Shambhala Publications. p. 476. ISBN 1-59030-207-9. 
5. Jump up ^ Haas, Michaela (2013). "Dakini Power: Twelve Extraordinary Women Shaping the Transmission of Tibetan Buddhism in the West". Snow Lion. ISBN 1559394072, p. 128
6. Jump up ^ Sandy Boucher (1993). Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. Beacon Press. pp. 93–97. ISBN 0-8070-7305-9. 
7. Jump up ^ James William Coleman (2001). The New Buddhism: The Western Transformation of an Ancient Tradition. Oxford University Press. p. 150. ISBN 0-19-515241-7. 
8. Jump up ^ Boucher (1993) pp. 96-97
9. Jump up ^ see information on her Homepage
10. Jump up ^ Website of Kongtrul Rinpoche
11. Jump up ^ Buddhist Monks And Monasteries Of India: Their History And Contribution To Indian Culture. George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London 1962. pg 54
12. Jump up ^ Bill Moyers and Pema Chödrön . August 4, 2006
13. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} The Shenpa Syndrome
14. Jump up ^ How We Get Hooked and How We Get Unhooked
15. Jump up ^ The Shenpa syndrome: Learning to stay