IRB Media Summary of Pema Chodron's Living Beautifully

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Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 We all have a fear of how things really are. We seem to resist the fact that everything around us is in flux, and we want to find a secure and dependable life. But this is impossible, and we must accept and relax into the uncertainty of life.#2 We are always trying to grab at pleasure and avoid pain, but we never quite achieve the state of unwavering satisfaction we're seeking. We feel good sometimes, but then we're hit with physical pain or mental anguish.#3 The root of our fundamentalist tendencies is a fixed identity, which we use to try and put solid ground under our feet in an ever-shifting world. As we sit and meditate, we begin to see ourselves with more clarity, and we notice how attached we are to our opinions about ourselves.#4 The purpose of the spiritual path is to take off our armor, and when we do, it feels like a crisis because it is a crisis - a fixed-identity crisis. We maintain our false security by filtering all of our experience through this perspective.