Shambhala Mountain Center Blog

Buddhism has been described as a religion, philosophy, ideology and a way of life. Pema Chödrön, one of the first Western women to become fully ordained as a Buddhist monastic and author of When Things Fall Apart, talks to Oprah about learning from pain and what it means to be a Buddhist.

Oprah: Why do Buddhists always seem so peaceful?

Pema: I don’t know that they’re always so peaceful, you know. It’s so funny, you know, like does it seem to you that Buddhists are always so peaceful?

Oprah: Yes, it does. I’ve never met a Buddhist—well, all of my encounters, you know, I define myself as Christian, and I’ve met a lot of Christians who weren’t so peaceful. But I’ve never met a Buddhist who, you know, introduced themselves to me as a Buddhist or I happened to know is Buddhist and they didn’t, you know, weren’t actively seeking peace.

Pema: Yeah.

Oprah: And I’m sure not all practicing Buddhists are as good as maybe some of the Buddhists that I know. But it seems that there’s something very calming about the practice or—I don’t know, do you call—is it—it’s a religion, it’s a philosophy, it’s a way of life—

Pema: Yeah, you—when you did your introduction, you talked about it as philosophy and way of life. I think that’s, you know, a very helpful way to think of it. And if there is a reason for the calmness, I think it has to do with because you’re keeping your mind open, you’re training and keeping your mind and heart open rather than closed. So it’s like—in my own experience, my 71 years, you know, or I haven’t been practicing for 71 years, but whatever amount of years it is that I’ve been practicing, when you train in actually being curious and open and receptive to whatever is occurring, obviously less and less things throw you for a loop and provoke you. And when they do, then you’re just curious about that. You see what I’m saying?

Oprah: Yes. And what does it mean to be a Buddhist?

Pema: What does it mean to be a Buddhist?

Oprah: Yes.

Pema: Well, a lot of people might say different things about that, but in my opinion, the essence of it is trusting that the nature of your mind and heart is limitless, boundless, openness, free of prejudice, free of bias, and you could stay in that space and open your eyes and your ears and all your sense perceptions to what’s happening without narrowing down into a prejudice or a bias or a view, a kind of solid view that says, no, no, it can’t be like that, it has to be like this. So somehow that seems to lead to seeing the humanity of even the worst people and seeing—

Oprah: That’s why Buddhists are always so calm.

Read the entire interview

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 9:07 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.