Pema Chodron

Pema Chödrön is an American Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, acharya and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Pema has written several books and is the director of the Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Pema Chödrön teaches the traditional “Yarne” retreat at Gampo Abbey each winter and the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life in Berkeley each summer. A central theme of her teaching is the principle of “shenpa”, or “attachment”, which she interprets as the moment one is hooked into a cycle of habitual negative or self-destructive thoughts and actions. According to Chödrön, this occurs when something in the present stimulates a reaction to a past experience