Start Where You Are: A Guide To Compassionate Living (2001) - Plot & Excerpts
A friend recommended this author to me a couple months ago when we'd been discussing the topic of mindfulness. The author shares some of the most useful practical techniques for working through the ups and downs of daily life: how to improve patience with oneself and others, how to deal with conflict and difficult circumstances out of our control, how to have courage despite uncertainty. Like the teachings of Christ, it's not an easy path Pema and the Buddhists present ("turn the other cheek", "love thy enemy"). In fact it's a very rigorous one that challenges us to stare the most difficult aspects of life in the face, accept them with gratitude and grow through them. There is a lot of emphasis on seeing yourself clearly, examining even your most unseemly shortcomings and working through them, a very much inside-out approach. There's also emphasis on staying with and "leaning into" our challenges rather than escaping them. She talks a lot about a "subtle nervousness" we all have and our proclivity to seek out distractions to try and ignore what needs to change within. A couple quotes:“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”“Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose--you're just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We'd be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn't have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
So I've been a bit frustrated with myself lately. Frustrated with my lack of patience (which has come out of nowhere), frustrated with my easy annoyance with others, frustrated with my temper (also coming out of nowhere) and mostly frustrated with myself for allowing these things to happen. So I found this book and decided it was worth a read. I have zero experience with Buddhism (aside from receiving the occasional mixed drink in a Buddha-shaped cup) and had never heard of Pema Chodron before purchasing this book. I've since bought two other of her books, as I've learned so much from this one.While she does talk of some Buddhist principle and practices, it's relatively light and easy to follow. Mostly, she discusses how to deal with difficult situations or people and how to remain calm and positive in trying or frustrating spots. She uses 59 proverbs of lojong (a Buddhist mind-training program) as the basis of dealing with these issues. Some of these include:-Be grateful to everyone. (Even those who frustrate you can teach you a lesson.)-Always maintain only a joyful mind.-Don’t talk about injured limbs (Don’t take pleasure contemplating others defects.)-Don’t ponder others (Don’t take pleasure contemplating others weaknesses.)-Abandon any hope of fruition. (Don’t get caught up in how you will be in the future, stay in the present moment.)-Don’t bring things to a painful point — Don’t humiliate others. (This one is my favorite. So simple, yet so often overlooked in life.)This book will definitely get a second read.
What do You think about Start Where You Are: A Guide To Compassionate Living (2001)?
This is actually a practical book that contains practices and suggestions that everyone, regardless of faith, can employ to challenge currents ways of thinking. You can boil the book down to slogans and meditation, but the simple idea of "letting go" with anything that comes to mind really can change one's disposition. It is also practical when trying to put into action principles such as awareness of suffering in self and others. When able to let things go joy remains. It is worth exploring in this day and age. She also had great examples that not only gave context but simple images to practice and play with.She is not asking us to ignore pain and hurt, just not let that hold you back, hide, resent, etc. Stop struggling, acknowledge (pain or joy) and let it go. She gives multiple ways to do this outside of meditation - again, very practical. "Everything in life can either wake us up or put us to sleep." Been there.I gave it four stars because I did have issues with how much was in the book. The word slogan, affirmations, principles etc...are used somewhat interchangably that the read becomes difficult to keep together - the ideas start to bleed away. An enjoyable read that challenges how was look at ideas and thoughts and the actions we take to "wake up" or "die."
—Robert
This book has a few REALLY great statements, such as:"We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves." Oh, wait a second, that's the only one. A major part of her instruction is to teach the reader how to work with 'slogans'. I find these extremely annoying, especially when they are not in a meaningful context for me and she begins every single paragraph with "Another slogan says..."I picked up the book b/c she is said to frame her teachings for the western mind. I found it way more confusing than Thich Naht Hahn's writing and that's what I'll be going back to.
—Anna
Reading this book is what made me say "hey, this Buddhism thing makes a whole lot of sense to me". Pema is always down to earth and sometimes earthy in her presentation of the ideas and how they relate to our lives. She approaches every subject with compassion and makes you really feel like she understands your struggles and issues because she has gone through them, and because she is still going through them. She lets you know that while the difficulties and the issues will always be there, you can change your relationship to them and work with them.
—Ren Leaflight
