The notes below are designed to give prospective readers an idea of what to expect from the book, and to aid in making a decision on whether to buy it.
Start Where You Are, Pema Choedroen
Below are some general notes on the book, followed by some of the key things I noted from some specific chapters.
General Notes
3 Tools:
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Basic Seated meditation (shamatha Vipashyana)
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Tonglen (taking in and sending out)
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Lojon (slogans).
Meditation - be fully present. Right there with the breath as it goes out. Healing is to know how you are sneaky.
Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
Bodhicitta is wounded, softened heart.
Awakened heart via:
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Soft and gentile with compassion
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Clear and sharp (prana)
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It is open
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Shanyata or emptiness
Move into the pain. Let it awaken you. Let it soften you. Be generous with your joys, give away what you most want.
Gain and victory go to others, death comes to me.
Regard all dharma’s as dreams. We are all just a dream.
Gentleness helps to awaken Bodhivista.
Don’t worry about achieving or perfecting things. Just be there.
Listen up, relax, breathe, love,
“Examine the nature of unborn awareness.” Armour around our hearts causes misery.
“Self-liberation evens the awareness.”
Follow breath and label thoughts.
You can let things go.
Thoughts are linked with an identity. Let it go.
Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence.
Chapter 4
Allis an illusion. Buddha within is good and bad. Be more curious than afraid.
Chapter 5
Messy stuff is Klesa including passion/craving/addiction; aggression; ignorance/denial. Don’t suppress them or void them. They are who we are. Typically they are repressed. Feel your heart. Feel the woundedness. Touch your own soft spot.
Chapter 6
What do you do for yourself and what do you do for others in terms of kindness? What you do for others and what you do for yourself are linked.
If you range, you will hurt more inside.
Label thoughts (violence, hate, etc.) and then let them go.
4 stages of tonglen:
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Flashing openness
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Breath in the heart, out of the light, dark
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Breathe in the pain and breathe out the kindness as a gift to the other
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Send it to someone you don’t know (e.g. homeless person) as a gift
Chapter 7
We all suffer. We share this path together.
Wanting to harm our own kids makes you understand and judge them.
Chapter 8
Instead of blaming others, own the blame yourself as well as the anger. Make it your friend.
Chapter 9
Be grateful to everyone, even those we dislike.
Chapter 10
Solidarity of things.
Joy comes from getting real with it.
Chapter 19
Always meditate on what causes your reaction.
We have met the enemy and it is us. We have met the friend and it is us.
Kaya is body. 4 kayas:
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Dharmakayas: essence of tongle
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Sambhogakaya: enjoyment of body
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Nirmanakya: Emptiness
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Svabhavakava: Unity of previous 3