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Awaken Every Day: 365 Buddhist Reflections to Invite Mindfulness and Joy
Daily dharma teachings on compassion, wisdom, mindfulness, and joy--ideal for creating moments of peace and reflection in our chaotic world.
Awaken Every Day offers reflections for each day of the year, helping readers cultivate meaning in our own lives and contribute to the well-being of others. Venerable Thubten Chodron is beloved for her ability to help people understand key Buddhist teachings and apply them to the everyday challenges of life. Awaken Every Day shares a quick daily dose of this wisdom, encouraging readers to understand the true causes of our suffering and the paths to freedom. Whether we read straight through or dip in, whether we look for a teaching in the morning or a reflection in the evening, Awaken Every Day helps us understand our minds, our connections to our communities, and how to become the people we aspire to be.
Awaken Every Day offers reflections for each day of the year, helping readers cultivate meaning in our own lives and contribute to the well-being of others. Venerable Thubten Chodron is beloved for her ability to help people understand key Buddhist teachings and apply them to the everyday challenges of life. Awaken Every Day shares a quick daily dose of this wisdom, encouraging readers to understand the true causes of our suffering and the paths to freedom. Whether we read straight through or dip in, whether we look for a teaching in the morning or a reflection in the evening, Awaken Every Day helps us understand our minds, our connections to our communities, and how to become the people we aspire to be.
400 pages, Paperback
Published June 18, 2019
121 people are currently reading
233 people want to read
About the author
Thubten Chodron
71 books164 followersBorn in 1950, Venerable Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron (Ch: 圖丹.卻淮) grew up near Los Angeles. She graduated with a B.A. in History from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1971. After travelling through Europe, North Africa and Asia for one and a half years, she received a teaching credential and went to the University of Southern California to do post-graduate work in Education while working as a teacher in the Los Angeles City School System.
In 1975, she attended a meditation course given by Ven. Lama Yeshe and Ven. Zopa Rinpoche, and subsequently went to their monastery in Nepal to continue to study and practice Buddha's teachings. In 1977, she received the sramanerika (novice) ordination, and in 1986, received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan.
She studied and practiced Buddhism of the Tibetan tradition for many years in India and Nepal under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenzhap Serkong Rinpoche, Zopa Rinpoche and other Tibetan masters for many years. She directed the spiritual program at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Italy for nearly two years, studied three years at Dorje Pamo Monastery in France, and was resident teacher at Amitabha Buddhist Center in Singapore. For ten years she was resident teacher at Dharma Friendship Founation in Seattle, where she continues to be spiritual advisor.
Ven. Chodron was a co-organizer of Life as a Western Buddhist Nun, and took part in the conferences of Western Buddhist teachers with H.H. the Dalai Lama in 1993 and 1994. She was present during the Jewish delegation's visit to Dharamsala, India, in 1990, which was the basis for Rodger Kamenetz' The Jew in the Lotus, and attended the Second Gethsemani Encounter in 2002. She is keen on interreligious dialogue. She has also been present at several of the Mind-Life Conferences in which H. H. the Dalai Lama dialogues with Western scientists.
Ven. Chodron travels worldwide to teach the Dharma: North America, Latin America, Israel, Singapore, Malaysia, and former communist countries.. Seeing the importance and necessity of a monastery for Westerners training in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, she founded Sravasti Abbey and is currently involved in developing it.
Ven. Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well-known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings.
In 1975, she attended a meditation course given by Ven. Lama Yeshe and Ven. Zopa Rinpoche, and subsequently went to their monastery in Nepal to continue to study and practice Buddha's teachings. In 1977, she received the sramanerika (novice) ordination, and in 1986, received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan.
She studied and practiced Buddhism of the Tibetan tradition for many years in India and Nepal under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tsenzhap Serkong Rinpoche, Zopa Rinpoche and other Tibetan masters for many years. She directed the spiritual program at Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Italy for nearly two years, studied three years at Dorje Pamo Monastery in France, and was resident teacher at Amitabha Buddhist Center in Singapore. For ten years she was resident teacher at Dharma Friendship Founation in Seattle, where she continues to be spiritual advisor.
Ven. Chodron was a co-organizer of Life as a Western Buddhist Nun, and took part in the conferences of Western Buddhist teachers with H.H. the Dalai Lama in 1993 and 1994. She was present during the Jewish delegation's visit to Dharamsala, India, in 1990, which was the basis for Rodger Kamenetz' The Jew in the Lotus, and attended the Second Gethsemani Encounter in 2002. She is keen on interreligious dialogue. She has also been present at several of the Mind-Life Conferences in which H. H. the Dalai Lama dialogues with Western scientists.
Ven. Chodron travels worldwide to teach the Dharma: North America, Latin America, Israel, Singapore, Malaysia, and former communist countries.. Seeing the importance and necessity of a monastery for Westerners training in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, she founded Sravasti Abbey and is currently involved in developing it.
Ven. Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well-known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 16, 2019
Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike will find multiple "take aways" from this book. Written by Thubten Chodron, known for her ability to explain concepts in an easy to understand way as well as her sense of humor, this book of daily devotions is instructive and deep while being easy to read. I find it interesting to compare and contrast the beliefs of different world religions. This book lends itself to that well.
My thanks to NetGalley and Shambala Press for allowing me to read an ARC of this devotional in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.
My thanks to NetGalley and Shambala Press for allowing me to read an ARC of this devotional in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are my own.
December 31, 2023
I started reading this book as a way of deal with my mental health, along with therapy, and after treatments and techniques I was able to get into a much better mental state. This book has some good insight and I found myself bookmarking a lot more pages than I thought I would. I think it would help to familiar with the basics of Buddhism but I believe even non-Buddhist would find helpful insight and techniques in this book.
December 31, 2021
This is a comfortable book (for the most part) ...I look forward to each day’s offerings... some are uplifiting and others stir up feelings and give rise to thoughts that I wrestle with. The straightforward presentation allows the reader to not get bogged down in questioning the meaning of what is written. I will be reading more books by this author.
June 18, 2019
Great advice to help you reach your full potential. The book was written in language that was easy to follow and that can be broken into small pieces.
March 11, 2021
short readings, one for each day- read for spiritual inspiration. Some excellent, others hard to understand w/o background in Buddhist teaching.
December 27, 2021
Well written daily one-pager on a principle of Buddhism. I thought the book dealt with a lot of everyday issues and provided nice suggestions on handling them.
February 15, 2023
Reading everyday since September 2022
December 2, 2023
It was okay. About 20% of the days were completely nonsensical and I didn’t learn as much about Buddhism as I had hoped to.
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July 17, 2025I've read most of Ven. Chodron's books. She is the best at explaining Buddhism to us Westerners
December 30, 2022
Very thought provoking. Some days were very Buddhist so I didn’t quite understand those. Overall very good.
April 27, 2019
Awaken Every Day is a wonderful book with great writing. It gives us fantastic bits to help us get through every day chaos.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews