Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living (Shambhala Library)

This is a beautiful, gift book edition (with a ribbon marker) of a modern-day classic. Start Where You Are is an indispensable handbook for cultivating fearlessness and awakening a compassionate heart. With insight and humor, Pema Chdrn, author of The Wisdom of No Escape and When Things Fall Apart, presents down-to-earth guidance on how to make friends with ourselves and develop genuine compassion toward others. The author shows how we can start where we are by embracing rather than denying the painful aspects of our lives. Pema Chdrn frames her teachings on compassion around fifty-nine traditional Tibetan Buddhist maxims, or slogans, such as:

Always apply a joyful state of mind
Don't seek others' pain as the limbs of your own happiness
Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment


Working with these slogans and through the practice of meditation, Start Where You Are shows how we can all develop the courage to work with our own inner pain and discover joy, well-being, and confidence.