The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

Pema Chödrön’s collection of dharma teachings on bodhichitta — the "awakened heart" tradition of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism — applied to fear, vulnerability and the daily ordinary terrors of being a self. The book’s organising practice is tonglen (giving and taking) as a way of staying with discomfort rather than fleeing it. Chödrön builds the argument around three pillars: maitri (loving-kindness toward oneself), the four limitless qualities (loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity), and the mind-training slogans of the eleventh-century Bengali master Atisha.

Published by Shambhala in 2001, it is positioned as a sequel of sorts to When Things Fall Apart (1997). Reception has run heavily through grief, recovery and trauma communities, where therapists have praised the book as an unusually well-pitched bridge between Buddhist practice and Western psychological vocabulary. The teaching draws from Chödrön’s root tradition — the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche at Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in North America — and reaches readers far outside that institutional context. The dharmic content sits well clear of the institutional controversies that later affected the Shambhala lineage.

Contents

Reception

One of Chödrön's three or four most-circulated books and a recurring recommendation across grief, recovery and trauma communities. Praised by therapists as an unusually well-pitched bridge between Buddhist practice and Western psychological vocabulary. The Sakyong Mipham allegations of 2018 produced a complicated retrospective on the Shambhala lineage's books generally; Chödrön addressed the situation publicly and her own books have continued to circulate, but the institutional context shifted permanently. The dharmic content of this particular book sits well clear of the institutional issues.

Frequently asked

What is The Places That Scare You about?

It is Pema Chödrön’s collection of dharma teachings on bodhichitta — the "awakened heart" tradition of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism — applied to fear, vulnerability and the daily ordinary terrors of being a self. The organising practice is tonglen (giving and taking) as a way of staying with discomfort rather than fleeing it.

What practices does the book teach?

Three pillars: maitri (loving-kindness toward oneself), the four limitless qualities (loving-kindness, compassion, joy, equanimity), and the mind-training slogans of the eleventh-century Bengali master Atisha. Tonglen — sending and taking — is the central meditation. The book ends with an appendix of practices, including the loving-kindness practice and the three-step aspiration.

How does it relate to When Things Fall Apart?

It is positioned as a sequel of sorts to When Things Fall Apart (1997). Chödrön continues the teaching that the core of the most painful experiences contains the seeds of spiritual awakening, here organised explicitly around the cultivation of bodhichitta — the "soft spot" — rather than the more general dissolution-of-ground material of the 1997 book.