For more than thirty years, she has been the abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the wildest and remotest part of Nova Scotia. But from that isolated spot-where she spends a good deal of her time even more isolated in solitary retreat-she has become one
of the most influential spiritual teachers of our time. That her best-selling books reach a remarkably broad audience, including many non-Buddhists, is testament not only to the universal applicability of the teachings to which she has dedicated her life, but also to her skill in conveying them in a way that cuts across boundaries and speaks directly to the heart.
Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in New York City in 1936 and grew up on a New Jersey farm. After graduating from UC Berkeley, she spent years as an elementary school teacher, wife, and mother of two children. But things changed for her dramatically the day Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche visited her classroom to talk to her young charges: He became her first root teacher, and, with his encouragement, she pursued the monastic life, ultimately taking full ordination as a nun in 1981. In 1984, at Trungpa Rinpoche's request, she established Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the first monastery in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition intended for Western monks and nuns.[/caption]
Having recently celebrated the milestone of her eightieth birthday, Pema is currently spending a greater amount of her time in retreat under the guidance of her teacher Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, though her commitment to transmitting the buddhadharma to the world will continue to result in more books, audios, and live teachings in the future.
For a quarter-century now, we at Shambhala Publications have had the honor to be her publisher. Here, as a guide, is a list of her books, audios, and videos that we've published over the last twenty-five years, in chronological order.