Compassion and personal distress
Chapter 56
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
An Open-Hearted Life 
Oct 16, 2022 Part of a series of talks based on An Open-Hearted Life given at Sravasti Abbey’s monthly Sharing the Dharma Day starting in April 2017. Co-written with clinical psychologist Dr. Russell Kolts, the book offers practical Buddhist and Western psychological approaches to developing compassion.
- Compassion and the death penalty
- Compassion begins with being moved by the suffering of others
- The difference between compassion and personal distress
- How compassion may slip into personal distress
- How we can counteract personal distress
- Reflections: Compassion and personal distress
An Open-Hearted Life 52: Compassion and personal distress (download)
A guided meditation led prior to the talk can be found here.
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable 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. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
