BOOKS
START WHERE YOU ARE
A Guide to Compassionate Living
M
any of us aspire to live a life with more compassion. It may inspire us to volunteer in
soup kitchens, to eat less meat (or even go vegan), or just to try to be more patient
and loving with the people around us. Yet, somehow, our best intentions fall away in the
moment and we find ourselves frustrated, despairing, furious, contemptuous, impatient, or
any of a hundred other things besides compassion with the people or situations we face.
This is especially true in the way we relate to ourselves - which can occasion yet another
round of frustration or despair as we notice that we are “failing” at compassion. How do we
defuse these tendencies and start to practice compassion?
Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun and the founder of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada, and whose book When Things Fall Apart was the subject of a previous review
in Parvati Magazine, wisely suggests that we start where we are.
Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living is a down-to-earth and wryly humorous guide to befriending the moment and ourselves, informed by traditional Buddhist