True Happiness by Pema Chödrön
Format: 2 CD set, 2.5 hours

Happiness is your birthright - and it is readily available at any given moment, teaches Pema Chödrön. So, why do we live in such suffering?

"The potential for happiness is not based on outer things - they come and go, causing us misery," she begins. "We're always chasing after something, trying to avoid the difficult places. But there are a lot of small sweetnesses that we ignore because they're so fleeting."

On True Happiness, Pema Chödrön guides you through simple-yet-effective practices that show you how to recognize and nurture these moments of delight, cultivating them until they become more and more frequent, accessible, and real as a constant influence in our lives.

At the root of everything is "basic goodness" - a Buddhist view that each of us is fundamentally awake and compassionate - yet we tend to look at ourselves from a place of "badness," explains Ani Pema. We spend our lives in self-doubt and confusion, attempting to be perfect and "get it right." But life is about being open to whatever might arise, including feelings of uneasiness as well as feelings of contentment and peace. Rather than asking "how can I get out of this?" - ask "how can I stay in this moment of discomfort and begin to soften?" It is in that moment of softening that you will find your open heart, teaches Pema Chödrön. "Everyone has the longing to feel the open heart, because it is a deep happiness that can never be taken away."

Recorded at Gampo Abbey Monastery in Nova Scotia, True Happiness gives you the opportunity to spend yarne - or winter retreat - with Pema Chödrön in the warmth and comfort of your own home. Join this bestselling author and teacher as she guides you through effective meditations and practices to dissolve the barriers to your heart, reconnect with the source of basic goodness, and cultivate a sense of happiness - if only to touch upon it for brief but precious moments at a time.

Ani Pema Chödrön 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.

Ani Pema is interested in helping establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well in continuing her work with western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings.