Well, Pema has done it again... this book speaks volumes about how leaning into your fears with acceptance and an open mind can change your daily existence for the better. I continue to marvel at her wisdom with each book she publishes and will never tire of listening to her teaching. ( )

Pema does it again. She mentions Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva a lot here, which has led me to Ken McLeod's book on that text, also excellent. ( )

While Pema has continued to release audiobooks of her talks and retreats on a fairly regular basis, it's been almost seven years since she's published a new, full-length book (2012's "Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change"). This one was definitely worth the wait, as she has gathered up so many rich teachings and simple practices that are designed to serve us in these tumultuous times.

With chapters entitled "The Fine Art of Failure", "The Practice of Open Awareness", "Life Changes in an Instant", "Imagine Life without Ego", and "How You Label It Is How It Appears", Pema cuts to the heart of how we work with our discursive thinking, our negative thoughts, and our habitual patterns to approach our lives with equanimity and appreciation.

She gently takes readers to the edges of their comfort zones and then points beyond them, encouraging us to risk welcoming the unwelcome, whether it be our own anxiety, a disruptive person in our lives, or that most unwelcome of visitors, death itself.

If you've read her earlier works, none of what is here might be revelatory, per se, but it is presented in a fresh context, with a keen awareness that life in 2019 feels very uneasy for many of us. She also addresses the uneasy topic of what happens when one feels betrayed by a valued teacher, something many in various spiritual communities have experienced of late.

If the title of the book seems daunting, know that Pema guides readers with an assured hand through the messiness of our own day-to-day lives, as well as the challenges of negotiating what it means to face national and global challenges with courage and unconditional confidence in our - and others' - basic goodness.

I got this book from our local library, but I will have to buy a copy now that I've read it so I can do what I do to most of Pema's books: highlight passages and make messy notes all over the margins. It's that kind of book. It's that kind of goodness. ( )

We enclose ourselves in a mesh of fear. And when many people and countries engage in this kind of approach, the result is a messy global situation with lots of pain and conflict.

That's where we find ourselves today, Brexit, Alligators and snake moots, tearing children from the families at the border.

We all have a tendency to divide people, things, and ideas into sharply contrasting categories.

The liberals and alt right.

These national and global problems have their roots in the subtle workings of our own individual minds.

The time we live in is a fertile ground for training in being open-minded and open-hearted. If we can learn to hold this falling apart–ness without polarizing and without becoming fundamentalist, then whatever we do today will have a positive effect on the future.

The first step is to look for polarization in myself. This involves arousing enough bravery to feel the vulnerability of seeing my own neurosis

Every day we would talk about other people. And we were only interested in people we could criticize. We would say nasty things (“He does that” and “Did you see what she did?”) while pretending that we were trying to be understanding and helpful. It was poisonous.

That's the way I feel reading the news every day, getting outraged at the latest tweet, at the his slavish following that no matter what the man does his constituents seem to hold the same high opinion. What I need to do is forget about HIM and try to learn what his followers are so afraid of why immigrants, gays, climate change, the press. To remember that both sides have intrinsic goodness lot of basic goodness in people.

Many of us who are engaged with the world experience discouragement regularly. If you’re concerned about the environment, social justice and equity, prison reform, the welfare of immigrants, or the welfare of people and the planet in general, it’s very easy to lose heart.

How do we not let ourselves spiral downward into a mindset of increasing hopelessness and
negativity? Or, if we’re already finding ourselves going downhill, how do we pull ourselves up?

( )

Good, but not as impactful as When Things Fall Apart. If deciding to buy this book and haven't read When Things... buy and read When Things... instead. ( )