Pema Chodron is treasured around the world for her unique ability to transmit teachings and practices that bring peace, understanding, and compassion into our lives. With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun presents her first book exploring in-depth what she considers the essentials for a lifelong practice.

More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning. This step-by-step guide shows readers how to honestly meet and openly relate with the mind, embrace the fullness of our experience, and live in a wholehearted way as we discover:

• The basics of meditation, from getting settled and the six points of posture to working with your breath and cultivating an attitude of unconditional friendliness
• The Seven Delights-how moments of difficulty can become doorways to awakening and love
• Shamatha (or calm abiding), the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises
• Thoughts and emotions as "sheer delight"--instead of obstacles--in meditation

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind, Pema Chodron, Sounds True, Hardcover, 175 pp, $19.95

Ani Pema Chodron was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City. She attended Miss Porter's School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. Pema has two children and three grandchildren. While in her mid-thirties, Ani Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years. She became a novice nun in 1974 while studying with Lama Chime in London. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to Scotland at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him. Pema first met her root guru, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Rinpoche, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.

Ani Pema served as the director of Karma Dzong in Boulder, Colorado until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for western monks and nuns. Ani Pema currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. She is also a student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the oldest son and lineage holder of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Ani Pema is interested in helping establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well as continuing her work with western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. Her non-profit, The Pema Chodron Foundation, was set up to assist in this purpose.

She has written several books: The Wisdom of No Escape, Start Where You Are, When Things Fall Apart, The Places that Scare You, No Time To Lose, Practicing Peace in Times of War, How to Meditate, and Living Beautifully.

CONTENTS: How to Meditate
	Introduction: Choosing to Live Wholeheartedly	1
PART ONE	THE TECHNIQUE OF MEDITATION
1	Preparing for Practice and Making the Commitment	17
2	Stabilizing the Mind	23
3	The Six Points of Posture	29
4	Breath: The Practice of Letting Go	37
5	Attitude: Keep Coming Back	41
6	Unconditional Friendliness	47
7	You Are Your Own Meditation Instructor	53
PART TWO	WORKING WITH THOUGHTS
8	The Monkey Mind	61
9	The Three Levels of Discursive Thought	63
10	Thoughts as the Object of Meditation	69
11	Regard All Dharmas as Dreams	73
PART THREE	WORKING WITH EMOTIONS
12	Becoming Intimate with Our Emotions	79
13	The Space within the Emotion	85
14	Emotions as the Object of Meditation	87
15	Getting Our Hands Dirty	93
16	Hold the Experience	99
17	Breathing with the Emotion	103
18	Drop the Story and Find the Feeling
PART FOUR	WORKING WITH SENSE PERCEPTIONS
19	The Sense Perceptions	115
20	The Interconnection of All Perceptions	133
PART FIVE	OPENING YOUR HEART TO INCLUDE EVERYTHING
21	Giving Up the Struggle	139
22	The Seven Delights	145
23	The Bearable Lightness of Being	153
24	Beliefs	157
25	Relaxing with Groundlessness	161
26	Create a Circle of Practitioners	165
27	Cultivate a Sense of Wonder	167
28	The Way of the Bodhisattva	171