This Very Moment Episode 10: Pema Chödrön

July 15, 2026

This Very Moment
Episode 10: Another Kind of Freedom: An Intimate Conversation with Pema Chödrön

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Show Notes

In this warm and wide-ranging conversation, Pema Chödrön reflects on her life, practice, teaching, and making Buddhist wisdom accessible in everyday experience as the milestone of her 90th birthday approaches.

Pema shares what “winding down” looks like for her, and why, at the urging of Anam Thubten Rinpoche, she continues to teach. At the heart of the conversation, Pema unpacks her new book’s (Another Kind of Freedom) central question: what does freedom actually mean? It’s not the conventional idea of escaping one situation for a better one, but a deeper, unconditional freedom found by moving toward experience rather than away from it.

The conversation touches on counterintuitive teachings on disappointment and boredom as spiritual signposts, the art of working with people without getting overwhelmed, and why praise and blame are equally superficial, illustrated by a perfectly timed airport story.

Pema also offers a memorable image for “inviting all sentient beings as guests” without overwhelming our nervous system and shares how, in this later chapter of her life, formless practice and the aspiration to live free from fixed mind guide her day to day.

This heartfelt conversation is a profound look at what lifelong practice can become.

About the Interviewee

Pema Chodron is one of the most beloved and widely read Buddhist teachers in the Western world. An American-born Tibetan nun, she has spent decades making the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism accessible, experiential, and relevant to everyday life. A senior student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, she is the author of numerous best-selling books, including When Things Fall Apart, The Places That Scare You, and Start Where You Are. Her newest book, Another Kind of Freedom, is her “student’s commentary” on Trungpa Rinpoche’s They Myth of Freedom.

Pema became a novice nun in 1974 and received full bhikshuni ordination in 1981. In 1984, she became the director of Gampo Abbey and has since served as the Abbess since 2025. A mother and grandmother, Pema has lived a full and diverse life in addition to contributing over 40 years of her lifetime to help establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West.

She spends 100 days or more in retreat under the guidance of Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche and continues to teach several programs a year across North America in addition to spending precious quality time with her family.