User:Mind meal/Sandbox

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ane-la Pema Chödrön

Information
Birth name:  Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Born: July 14, 1936 (1936-07-14) (age 71)
Place of birth: New York, New York, United States
Religion: Shambhala Vajradhatu
Title(s): Acharya
Workplace: Gampo Abbey
Education: Miss Porter's School
University of California
Teacher(s): Chögyam Trungpa
Website
Website: www.gampoabbey.org

Portal:Buddhism

Ane-la Pema Chödrön (b. July 14, 1936), born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, is a bhikkhuni and Acharya[1] practicing in the Shambhala Vajradhatu[2] lineage of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and is the author of several best-selling[3] books on Buddhism. According to the book Westward Dharma she has, "attracted thousands of students, roughly three-fourths of them women, many of whom had no previous experience of Buddhist meditation.[4] Chödrön has served as spiritual director of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada since 1984, chosen for the position by her late teacher Chögyam Trungpa.[5] According to the author Sandy Boucher, "Ane-la is the traditional title in Tibetan and is translated as "auntie." Pema means "lotus" and Chodron means "torch of Dharma."[6] The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America states, "Bhiksuni Pema has published several successful books on Tibetan Buddhist practice and has achieved international renown as one of the most influential and important Tibetan Buddhist teachers practicing today.[7] She currently suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, living in retreat most of the time and teaching less frequently.[8] Chödrön was a featured guest in 2006 of Bill Moyers on PBS for an episode of Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason.


Contents

[edit] Biography

Pema Chödrön was born as Deirdre Blomfield-Brown on July 14, 1936 in New York, New York to Reginald and Virginia (Dunn) Blomfield-Brown.[9] Raised in New Jersey and educated at Miss Porter's School in Connecticut, Chödrön was raised as a Catholic. She later married her first husband, with whom she had two children. She attended the University of California in Berkeley, where she received a master's degree in education and divorced her husband.[10] She then worked as a schoolteacher in California and also in New Mexico, where she was remarried and living as a hippie.[3][6] It was not long before her second husband left her for another woman and the two divorced, leaving Chödrön distraught and depressed. During this period she began exploring various spiritual paths in an attempt to make sense of her situation, from gestalt therapy to Hinduism.[6] Then, in 1972, she read an article by Chögyam Trungpa titled "Working with Negativity", which helped her to cope with the recent divorce. Sending her children to live with their father, she then moved in to the Lama Foundation located in northern New Mexico. While there an ex-boyfriend contacted her and invited her to join him on a trip to a Sufi camp located in the French Alps. There she met her first Buddhist teacher, Lama Chime, whom she privately studied with for the next two years in London (taking novice bhikkhuni vows with him).[8]

In 1981 she was fully ordained as a bhikkhuni.[11]

[edit] Teachings

Pema Chödrön has focused a great deal of her teaching energy on a revival of the lojong ("mind-training") practices of Tibet and tonglen meditation, spending much of her time "teaching on compassionate living."[4][12][13]

Concerning her teacher, the controversial Chögyam Trungpa, Chödrön says, "the job of the spiritual friend is to insult the student...if things got too smoothe he'd create chaos...And I wanted my foundations rocked. I wanted to actually be free of habitual patterns which keep the ground under my feet and maintain the false security that denies death."[14]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Other media

[edit] Audio

[edit] Video

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Prebish, 166
  2. ^ Gross, et al; 81
  3. ^ a b Lattin
  4. ^ a b Prebish, Baumann; 317
  5. ^ Neunzig Cahill, 377
  6. ^ a b c Turning the Wheel, 93-95
  7. ^ Skinner Keller, et al; 656
  8. ^ a b James Kullander
  9. ^ Rooney, et al; 68
  10. ^ Crossette
  11. ^ Opening the Lotus, 175
  12. ^ Ferguson, 43
  13. ^ Ryūken Williams, 259
  14. ^ Wakefield, 100

[edit] References

  • . 
  • . 
  • . 
  • . 
  • . 


[edit] External links

v • d • e
Buddhism
Concepts • Topics • History • Timeline • Schools • Texts • People • Places • Culture • Temples
Portal