Pema’s first book, The Wisdom of No Escape, was published in 1991, followed by Start Where You Are in 1994, and When Things Fall Apart in 1997. Readers were moved by her earthy, insightful teachings, and her retreats were suddenly full to overflowing. She was now constantly being asked to give talks and to take part in media events.

Much like Zen, Pema Chodron's interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism takes the form of a nontheistic spiritualism. In When Things Fall Apart this head of a Tibetan. Dec 23, 1996 When Things Fall Apart has 24,585 ratings and 1,416. Pema Chodron is one of the first Buddhist writers I found as I began to explore Buddhist. “The Four Noble Truths: When Things Fall Apart. Pema Chodron writes much that helps me, and sometimes irritates me, as well as challenges me.

I read this book over and over again. I LOVE her and her simple, straightforward way of talking about really deep spirituality. What initially attracted me to this book is kind of a funny story actually, I was going through a rough breakup and happened to be wandering through the stacks at the ICPL. I pulled this book off the shelf, just by chance.

So she begins the book by telling the story of how her marriage ended, when her husband drove up to their house one day and announced that he had met I read this book over and over again. I LOVE her and her simple, straightforward way of talking about really deep spirituality. What initially attracted me to this book is kind of a funny story actually, I was going through a rough breakup and happened to be wandering through the stacks at the ICPL. I pulled this book off the shelf, just by chance. So she begins the book by telling the story of how her marriage ended, when her husband drove up to their house one day and announced that he had met someone else, had been having an affair and their marriage was over. I was feeling rather bitter that day because of my own situation and remember thinking, oh great. She's going to go on about how Buddha Lovingkindness flooded her soul at that moment and she just released the whole thing and her soul became lighter and a chorus of Tibetan angels started chanting and it was so great blahblah (like I said, I was bitter).

But instead she said she was still for a moment, and it was one of those moments where you can't for the life of you tell if it was a second long or an hour long, and then she picked up a rock and threw it at him. It was then that I knew that this was my kind of nun, and decided to read on. Needless to say, she doesn't keep throwing rocks at people. She actually finds many brilliant ways to cope with pain and ego and loss and all that stuff through Buddhist teaching, and then articulates practical ways for regular non-nuns like myself to deal with pain and ego and loss in their own life.

I've since bought and loved a lot more of her books, and I highly recommend this one to anyone who is dealing with something difficult or just curious about Buddhism in general. Very good stuff. My therapist recommended this book when I was dealing with the end of my 11-yr relationship. She introduced it to me saying that often, when things seems the darkest, it just means we on the verge of breakthrough. I was like 'OK, that makes some sense.' Then it sat on my book shelf for 8 YEARS! Then my roommate Anya read it and told me it was a MUST READ.

I have never heard Buddhist philosophy laid out so clearly and accessibly for the Western mind. And you don' My therapist recommended this book when I was dealing with the end of my 11-yr relationship. She introduced it to me saying that often, when things seems the darkest, it just means we on the verge of breakthrough. I was like 'OK, that makes some sense.' Then it sat on my book shelf for 8 YEARS! Then my roommate Anya read it and told me it was a MUST READ.

I have never heard Buddhist philosophy laid out so clearly and accessibly for the Western mind. And you don't have to be Buddhist. And you DON'T have to be falling apart. (Though if you feel like you are it can help a lot.) So many goodies! The title refers to the suffering brought about by CLINGING to fragile security-blankets that give us the illusion of immutability in a universe where impermanence is the inevitable human experience. Accepting the impermanence of our own worldly existence, she says, opens our hearts to the vast beauty of the sacred.