Super Soul Special: Pema Chödrön: Dealing with Difficult Times
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I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to SuperSoul Conversations, the podcast.

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Today, she is a best-selling author and world-renowned Buddhist teacher. But for many years, Pema Chodron was simply known as Deirdre. Born in 1936, Deirdre Blumfeld Brown grew up on a farm in New Jersey and lived what she calls a perfectly conventional life. With the help of scholarships, she attended a prestigious prep school and college before marrying a lawyer and

and having two children. While working towards her master's degree, her marriage crumbled. Soon after, she married her second husband, a free-spirited writer. After eight years, that marriage also ended in a devastating divorce that brought her to her knees.

She tried different therapies at the time and spiritual paths to heal, but nothing seemed to help until she began exploring Buddhism, which she says spoke directly to her pain and suffering. In 1981, after years of study with Buddhist masters, she became one of the first Western women to be fully ordained as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition. She changed her name to Pema Chodron, which loosely translated means lamp, lamp.

of the truth. Today, Pema teaches how ancient Buddhist principles can apply to our modern everyday life. She has written many popular books, including one of my favorites, When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Difficult Times.

So welcome, Ani for My Children. Thank you. Thank you so much. I have to tell you that this book, When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice for Difficult Times, has been like a talisman for me. It's been a resource and many times to remind me to come back to center. And I know that your work in this book and in many teachings have...

been a stabling force for people. So I want to thank you for that. Thank you. So honored to be able to talk to you. Thank you. What's so fascinating about understanding how to come back to center when things fall apart is that usually in the spaces where and times when we most fall apart is where there's the most to learn. And what struck me about your life story is

is that it was a moment of falling apart. You say your second husband has been one of your greatest teachers. Can you tell us why? Well, he was one of my greatest teachers because he left me.

That's a simple truth. I mean, it was really clear that he was out of there. Can you take me back to that day? You describe it in the book. Yeah, I describe it in the book. And what actually happened is I was in northern New Mexico near Taos, out in front of our adobe house, drinking a cup of tea. And then the car drove up sort of behind the house. I heard the door slam, came around the corner of the house and

just said it, blunted it out, you know, that things haven't been going well with us, I'm having an affair with somebody else and we need to get a divorce.

And so then I described that. That's kind of stunning. Yeah. So it was so shocking, I suppose even traumatizing, that I had that experience that I described where it was just timeless moment of total eternal silence. Because had you suspected an affair? Oh, you know, looking back, things were really bad between us anyway, but somehow I wanted it to keep going. But it still came as a total shock.

out of the blue. There you are drinking your cup of tea. Your second husband pulls up and says, this is it. I'm having an affair. Yeah. So everything fell apart. I just somehow couldn't get it all to come back together. And I think I also say that in the book, which is that

I wanted it to come back together because for me happiness seemed to represent just going back to what I had had, which was not very happy, but it represented security and the known and everything. And then this happened and suddenly I was just out there and I couldn't get it to come back. It wasn't going to come back. And so I actually had to learn something about being in that space of

everything, no ground at all, just groundless, you know. Were you one of those women who defined your life by

that picture, playing that role, having the man, being married, being dependent. Were you one of those people? Oh, I was definitely one of those people. And so, you know, the big, big lesson for me coming out of it, it took about three or more years before I really was through it, a lot of grieving and so forth. But the big lesson was I would call

I didn't realize how attached I was to having to have somebody else confirm me as being okay. Like, in other words, it didn't come from inside me. It came from someone else's view of me. So when I was 20 years old, I got married the first time.

So I went from my family to my first marriage and then left my first husband, the children's father, for the second husband. And so from the time I was 20 until when I was like 35, I was always like somebody else's person, you know. So all of a sudden I was right out there. And that's what I really learned. I came through it.

I don't have that kind of attachment anymore for--I don't have that need at all. I haven't for a long time, that need to be confirmed by something from the outside.

And that's what your husband walking out on you eventually led to teaching you. That's right. That's right. So that's the amazing thing. You know, Maya Angelou, who was a mentor, mother, teacher for me. Yeah. One of the things that she really implanted and imprinted, I think, with so many of us, me in particular, I remember the day that she was telling me to say thank you.

when I was going through some crisis, but to say thank you because there's always a rainbow in the clouds. And in many cases, not even just a rainbow. There's a rainbow. There's a whole other open field waiting for you. That's right. So what is the first thing we should do when our lives fall apart? Well, first of all, what you're saying here is at some point, if you continue to be human, it will fall apart. It will fall apart.

I just gave a graduation speech at Naropa University in Boulder because my granddaughter just graduated from there. And the title of the talk was Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better. So I said, I think the most important thing for you kids going out into the world right now is to know how to fail really well. The skill of knowing how to hold the pain of failure

things happening that you really don't want to be happening, like training to be able to welcome or allow that kind of unwanted feelings, that pain, the rawness, I called it the rawness of

vulnerability. Yes, yes. And okay, something terrible is happening and then it's an opportunity. It's like what Maya Angelou said to you. There's something, something is going to come out of this, something new. This can end you up in a whole new place, a better place. Yes. A much more open place. If you know that. If you know that. Yes. You've said that the Buddha has only really taught two things, suffering and the end of suffering.

And suffering comes in so many forms. Can you speak to a moment about how we can begin the practice of ending our suffering? Sure. That's why I teach, you know. That's why you teach. That's the big question. That's right. That's right. I'm here to try. So one way is this practice that...

I began teaching that we called compassionate abiding. So compassionate abiding is a practice where when you're suffering, then someone might say first, like located in your body and just feel it completely. Feel as completely as you can just what's going on. Then

On the in-breath, just breathe it all in. Breathe in the suffering. Breathe it in. Or the discontent. That whole unwanted. Unwanted. That's what you mean. That is, I just want to clarify for our audience. Because when I first started reading Buddhist material and hearing about the Buddhist teachings about suffering, I was thinking, well, am I suffering? I don't know if I'm suffering. Because I used to think of suffering as suffering. Suffering.

Right, right, right. Like your childhood. Like your childhood. Your childhood was suffering. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but then you might say, well not now, my lovely life. Yeah, but you suffer in different ways. Yeah.

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The word suffering is usually associated with something tragic like war, poverty, or the death of a loved one. When Pema uses the word suffering, however, she's also talking about times that are disruptive, that give us anxiety or despair, like losing a job, a stressful conflict in your family, or when you believe life isn't going your way.

Every time you have something that is unwanted, that makes you uncomfortable, where you really don't want to go there and deal with. Even insecure? Insecure. That's what we mean by suffering. Yeah. Yes. Another way it's sometimes translated is discontent. Discontent. That's the perfect word. How do we end our discontent? So there's that discontent and you recognize it.

And you wish to be free of it. So instead of running away or eating something, drinking something, whatever, yelling at someone, instead you breathe it in. And sometimes I use the image of it's as if you breathe it into your heart and your heart just gets bigger and bigger. Every time you breathe in the heart...

gets bigger and bigger so that no matter how bad it feels, you just give it more space. So when you breathe in, you open to it, I guess you could say. And when you breathe out, you just send out a lot of space. Okay. So what you're really saying is, and I think this is so important for anybody going through anything,

you have to first accept that what has happened has really happened. So that breathing in is like being with it and fully accepting this moment instead of trying to resist it and push it away. Sometimes I say, what does your heart feel like? People will say, it feels like a rock. What does your stomach feel like? It feels like a knot, you know?

It's as if my whole body was clenched fists and like this because I'm so miserable. Yeah. And say, okay, so breathe in and just let that heart open. Let the stomach open. It's as if you, when you breathe in, you were going like that, you know? Okay. I surrender. I surrender. You know? I know that. And you breathe in deeply.

You breathe out deeply. And if you want to just do six in breaths where you emphasize that, go right ahead, you know. But usually it's on the medium of the breath, breathing it in.

kind of allowing it, welcoming it even, embracing it even. I mean, you can use whatever word works, you know. That's called compassionate abiding. Yeah, compassionate abiding with yourself. Yeah. And at a certain point, I mean, sometimes right away, sometimes a long time down the line, I have people say, you know, when you breathe in, you could recognize...

that all over the world right now and in the past and in the future, people are going to feel exactly what you're feeling now. The feeling of being rejected, the feeling of being unloved, the feeling of insecurity, the feeling of fear, rage, whatever it is you're feeling,

Human beings have always felt this and always will. And so you breathe in for everyone, that they could welcome it, that they could say, I haven't done anything wrong, embrace it. So do you see, it becomes a, by really knowing or having that kind of deep friendship with yourself, it translates into healing.

being merciful for others, to being compassionate for others. And the reason why I see it as so important is, again, the first step in being able to move forward is to be able to accept, fully accept where you are in any situation. You've got to first accept it. That's right. And so running away from it is the exact opposite of acceptance. So everybody tries to run away from it. We try to run away from it. Yeah, that's...

That's almost like knee-jerk reaction. Yes. So this is doing something else. Just be with it. That's the first thing you need to do. Just be with it, yeah. That sounds so hard because that's the opposite of what you want to do. You want it to go away. I spend a lot of time just trying to encourage people that they have the capacity to feel pain or unpleasant feelings or suffering, whatever you want to call it.

Just allow yourself to be fully human. Human beings don't just feel good.

Have you noticed that? And animals too, you know, we don't just feel good. The richness of life includes the whole tapestry of good and bad and happy and sad. And so, but happy, good, winning, all of that, people don't have too much problem with, you know, but it's as soon as they even get near something that feels uncomfortable, substance abuse comes from that.

All kinds of addictions come from that. I think all like violence and domestic violence and about violence to kids and all that. I think it all comes from that. Everyone, that's the sad thing. Everyone's trying to feel good and they do terrible things to feel good. To make themselves, everybody trying to make themselves feel good, to quiet the noise that's here that they can't be with. That's right. And they reach out externally to

- To do that. - That's right. - One of the things I like so much is at the very beginning of When Things Fall Apart, you talk about fear, and I love this quote. You say, "Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth." I went, whoa.

Whoa, come on, Ms. Pema. That does sound good. That does. Come on, Ms. Pema. Did I say that? That is good. That is good. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. I guess what I meant by that, I mean, you know, sometimes the mind. Oh, you're like me. Sometimes I see something and it'll say Oprah Winfrey and I go, did I say that? That made more sense than I thought. Yeah, that's good.

But no, that was powerful. Fear is a natural reaction. And moving closer to the truth. And I think probably partially in any way what I meant by that was that

Fear comes with not knowing what's going to happen. The unknown. Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen next. But fear, in fact, in the Shambhala teachings, I'm part of a, you know, the lineage that I'm part of is called Shambhala. And so one of the Shambhala teachings is not, if you don't know the nature of fear, if you don't know what fear feels like, then you can never be fearless again.

How's that for a quote? Not knowing the nature of fear, you can never be fearless. Oh, that's good. That's good. It is good, isn't it? Mm-hmm. I'm taking it in. And I think people need to know, I remember on the Oprah show, I've been talking about these principles and practices for a long time. And I remember talking to a gentleman on the show and he said, I ain't afraid of nothing.

Because a lot of people think of it as, you know, activated physical fear. But when we're speaking of fear, and those of you who are super solars obviously know this, but if you're a first timer, we're talking about all of...

the ramifications and manifestations of fear. Yeah. Anxiety is fear. Yeah, anxiety. Jealousy is fear. Yeah, that's right. Rage actually. Low self-esteem is fear. Rage is nothing but fear. That's right. Rage is fear to the 10th power. That's right, that's right. Do you think loneliness is fear? Yes, I do. I hadn't thought of it before. I love a moment that I've never thought. What a great question. Do I think loneliness is fear? Well, you have the rest of your life to think about that. Yes.

I'll call you. My first response is yes, because as a little girl, I think I was. I mean, I did this exercise with John Bradshaw once, who was a master teacher on the inner child. And he did this exercise where you go back to your walk yourself, your six-year-old self, home from school, and get to the door and look through the window, and what do you see? Yeah. Yeah.

Look inside and what do you see? So it's the only time I ever felt overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness. As a little one. As a little girl. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of lonely, can I ask you, have you ever been lonely?

Yeah, I used to be lonely. You used to be lonely. But the last time I remember being lonely was maybe about 20 years ago when I had something happen where everybody left me, so to speak, and I was all alone in a remote cabin, and the feeling of loneliness was just desperate. And so I started calling up my friends. First I called up a man friend of mine, then I called up a woman friend of mine, and they were both very helpful and compassionate. And then I put down the phone and I said, you know...

actually nobody can help you out of this. You just have to be lonely and just relate to it. And somehow after that I was never lonely again. - Never lonely again. - 'Cause I realized that those other people weren't really gonna-- - They can't fix it. - They can't fix it. - They can't fix it, yeah. - And then I thought about death, you know? That's gonna be all alone, so might as well be good and ready for that. - Certainly do it alone, yeah. - Certainly do. I mean, you can be surrounded, but you go by yourself. - Go by yourself.

So what do you think death is? What do I think death is? Well, personally, myself, I'm not afraid of it because I think of it as a transition to... What happens when we die? Well, I'm going to say what I feel, but I also always like to say this is what I think happens, but I'm willing, I'm ready to be surprised.

If it's different, I can say, hey, I got it wrong, you know. But I think just the way you go to sleep at night. Yeah.

And there's this whole dream world. I think when you die, you enter into a--the whole-- You wake up. I think everything continues. I do, too. And then I think you end up getting born again and life goes on. I do think merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream. Yeah, I do, too. Pema Chodron often talks about a phenomenon that Buddhists call "shinpa."

It's a Tibetan word for those obsessive feelings and urges that we just can't seem to release. Like the resentment that remains long after somebody has been unkind to us or getting overwhelmed by frustration when we fail. That craving for a cigarette or something sweet to ease a stressful day. That's a Shenpa. It's how we get hooked or taken over by a negative experience.

So you lose yourself in whatever that moment is. I lost my job. I didn't get the grades I thought I was going to have. Disappointment. Disappointment. You get taken over by that and feel that now you are that. Exactly. Right. Exactly. That's what Shampa is. Yeah, Shampa is that feeling of being hooked. So, for instance, I was just talking to someone yesterday who's going through a crisis, and I said, uh...

First of all, remove yourself from the situation, by which I meant just go for a walk, you know, get out when the thing's getting intense. So just suppose you lost your job. So the same thing would be true. Give yourself some space. Yeah. And find, make it a priority to give yourself literally some space. Go to a library if

to, you know, or a park or somewhere where no one's going to talk to you, you're not going to talk to them. And be right there with the feeling without trying to run away from it. It would be like go and walk on the beach with the feeling. Be alone with it. And then this is the hard part and this is where meditation actually really comes in as a big help. Notice your thoughts.

And notice what you're saying to yourself. And notice how it's all about either about your wrong or their wrong. Somehow you're blaming yourself. There's that self-hatred, self-denigration, real love. What did I do? What did I do? What did I do? Really feeling bad about yourself. Yeah. Why me? Why me? Or just strike out, strike out, blame, blame, blame the husband, blame the boss, blame the teacher who gave you the grade or, you know.

Notice that and then with meditation you actually train and notice your thinking, come back to just being present. Notice your thinking, just come back to being present. We call that here on SuperSoul, come back to the observer, observe the thought and then

be aware that you are the observer and that you're not the thought. That's right. Yeah. And come back to just the immediacy of your experience rather than coming back to being someone like the observer. You see what I'm saying? Like, get--it's more like not so much about self as about just

Genuine experiencing of the present, like touching this chair arm, feeling the warmth of the cup. Yes. So be aware of everything in the present moment. Bring yourself back to present moment. That's right. So this is the interesting thing. When you turn toward the unwanted, unpleasant, insecure feelings...

some, it transforms you in some kind of way. I, what I think of it. Well you own them. That's right. You literally own them. That's right. Yeah. And what I think really happens is people connect with the fact that they are basically good. They're basically good. They're not basically messed up or broken goods or,

That there's something fundamentally wrong with you. Yes, but then the next question becomes, "I'm a good person. Why did this happen to me?" And I know some people lose their faith around issues like this because their prayer and their... Because, God, you didn't do what I asked you to do. That's right. So I would just say,

Nothing wrong has actually happened here. You have lost your job. Life is pointing you in a different direction, like another opportunity has opened up here for you. And at the very least, and this is probably the most important thing, is this is an opportunity to really start to welcome those kind of really stuck, activated, painful kind of feelings. Mm-hmm.

And... It's happening so you will go there. Yeah. It's happening so you will go there. Yeah. So for me and a lot of people I've encountered, the losing the job, the failure coming in any kind of form,

What's really... What it really gets to is at the core of it, you feel like you really messed up and you are fundamentally a mess. A mess, yeah. Yeah. And that's... But that's an ego thing, isn't it? That is... That's the crux of ego. That's the main... Yes. ...shempa, the main attachment is to that. Yes. To that. But if you just say...

Let's just say let's make friends with the ego rather than you know try to obliterate it or call it bad and making friends with it means

Know it 100% completely. Don't reject it. And believe it or not, that's how you begin to become a more egoless person because the only reason we do this grasping and fixating and all of this, which we call ego, if I'm making sense. You're making sense. Is because we feel we have something to protect. We don't want to go to that place. We don't want to feel that way. Yeah.

And this is why I teach is because if people can hold or embrace or allow or get their nervous system so they can handle the suffering, the uncomfortableness, the insecurity... Discontent. ...then the discontent, then there is a chance of letting the evolution happen.

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So yours was a, would you say even now that was a full circle drastic turn you made from wife, mother, dependent on somebody else's view of yourself. And was it happenstance or was it just a calling that you felt to become a nun?

I had never felt any calling to become a nun. In fact, once when I was living in northern New Mexico in the area of the communes, I was at a commune and I remember I had this long purple dress and I had long straight hair and I was thinking I looked like great, you know, standing out in a garden. And this rabbi who happened to be at the commune at that time came up to me and he said, "I just had a vision of you as a nun."

And he might as well have just said, "I had a vision of you as a werewolf," or something. Like I was so insulted. Really? Yeah. So it was the last thing I ever thought of. But then when, you know, when all, everything came to pass with the marriage, two marriages breaking up and everything, and I began to get interested in spirituality, and then that led to Buddhism.

Then I was living at this community in England, a Buddhist community. And this teacher came through who was very important to me and he was giving the ordination, monk's ordination, nun's ordination. And everyone in the whole place, which was about 30 people, was trying to decide whether to do it or not do it. So it was like the topic. And for some reason I thought doing it is forward-looking.

Not doing it is backward. I don't know. It just, at that point, it meant forward. I can't say any other way, you know? My whole life, I've had that instinct of what's forward. I don't know if that makes any sense. It makes all the sense to me. I think everybody has patterns. Yeah. And it's your job to figure out what your pattern is. Mine is...

I've learned as much as I can learn doing this thing. Now I need to move forward. Go forward. Yeah. And it happens when I've learned as much as I can learn at that thing. And then something else opens itself. And nowadays forward, I never know where forward is going to be these days, you know. But somehow there's always forward. A forward, yes. I think as long as there's still breath, there is forward. Yeah, I think so too.

How do you define spirituality versus religion? What is spirituality? You talk about it like going out in the boat. Oh, right. It's like getting into a boat and leaving the shore and going out where you can't see the shoreline anymore. And you're not really sure if you're ever going to get back because it's...

So vast and open. That's right. Yes, yes. And I guess there would be a lot of different ways people would talk about religion, but nowadays I think we think of it, unfortunately, as that which separates people. Like people holding on to beliefs, whereas spirituality could be a definition that it's about going beyond beliefs maybe. I love that. That's what I mean about when you stop being fixed about how it has to be and who you have to be and you let it

It becomes more like a river. You're more like a river than a rock, if you know what I'm saying. Like it keeps moving forward because that's natural. That's just natural. That is what being human is. I think so. Is to know that change is a part of our being here. Yeah. And you know, that's a basic Buddhist tenet also. You know, change is just the way things are.

So I suppose you could say... To expect things not to change is... And so maybe that's another way of saying fail, fail again, fail better, you know? Fail, fail again. Things are going to keep changing. And if you're invested in security and certainty, then you're not going to feel good a lot of the time. Then you're on the wrong planet. You are on the wrong planet. The wrong planet. But I always say it's like... Because things are changing around here. That's right.

I love what you say in A Guide to Compassionate Living. "We already have everything we need." Ooh. That is such a powerful line. That's such a powerful line. "We already have everything we need." I really believe that. Yeah. But you say, "We have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement." I'm going to ask you about that in a minute.

All these trips that we lay on ourselves, the heavy duty fearing that we're bad and hoping that we're good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds never touch our basic wealth. I love that. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun, but all the time our warmth,

brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. That is some brilliant writing, Sister Pam. It does again. Sounds pretty good to me, too. Where is that from? That is from the book.

Maybe I can learn something from these books. That is from your book, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, and it's actually page three. But what do you mean that we don't need self-improvement? Now, that's the only thing I thought. Don't need self-improvement. I understand fundamentally what you're saying, that who you really are is already just fine because you are that which comes from all, from the source of all things.

But the idea of constantly trying to get better, even fail better, is something that I think... So like, and you call that self-improvement. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, I'm using self-improvement there as sort of derogatory. Yeah. You meaning the big self, self with a capital S. I'm really meaning there's something wrong with me and I have to, like I...

the way I look isn't good enough. The way I keep my house isn't good enough. I think that's what I'm getting at is if self-improvement means that I'm going to be different than I am now. So if the view instead is that

nothing wrong here. I haven't done anything wrong. But there's things that are obstructing me from really fully feeling that. Well, then let's just look at those things and know them completely and utterly. Let's know our rage. Let's know our fear. Let's know our resentment. Do you see what I'm saying? I got it. And by knowing it, listening to the

what you say about yourself and letting some of that negative self-talk go, you know.

Then the fundamental thing is there. It's like the sun is always shining, but there's clouds that are obstructing it. That's why I love that moment in the plane when if it's raining, if it's pouring rain on the ground and you get in the airplane and you shoot up above the clouds and there is the sun. That's right. It's always there. I know. It's always there. I love it too. It never went anywhere, actually. It never went anywhere. So that is a classic image for basic wholeness or basic...

worthiness or basic goodness, you know. Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul Conversation. Thank you for listening.

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