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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How do we begin to practice the four limitless qualities?
(a) We begin by wishing happiness for ourselves and our close circle, gradually widening the circle.
(b) We try to love ourselves by making sure we are as comfortable as possible, and then try to help others be comfortable as well.
(c) We study the holy books with our spiritual teachers, and once we understand these qualities, we begin to meditate on them.
(d) We must believe in our own potential, and we may begin by creating a slogan that states what we want to embody.

2. Why does the author encourage readers to question the "strategies of the ego"?
(a) To eventually change our behavior.
(b) To connect to the Superego.
(c) To let our guard down and better understand others.
(d) To increase the hope in our lives.

3. How does Chitta translate?
(a) As mind, heart, or attitude.
(b) As mind or thought.
(c) As relaxation.
(d) As love, heart, and affection.

4. How does Bodhi translate?
(a) As dream, hope, and illusion.
(b) Awake, enlightened, or completely open.
(c) As health.
(d) As effort or work.

5. What advice did the author receive as a six year old?
(a) Not to let life harden her heart.
(b) To have a clear mind by avoiding spicy foods.
(c) To care for others in order to make her own life smoother.
(d) Not to listen to advice.

6. Where does Chodron write that she got her idea of what was real as she grew up in the 1950s?
(a) Church.
(b) Her family.
(c) Television.
(d) School.

7. What are the four limitless qualities?
(a) Hope, generosity, love, and relaxation.
(b) Change, Suffering, discomfort, and lack.
(c) Loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
(d) Material things, ideas, barriers of the self, and barriers of others.

8. According to Chodron, what happens when we consciously try to fix faults in ourselves?
(a) We can hurt others.
(b) We are unable to access our feelings in a meaningful way.
(c) We may have positive results, but they are uncertain.
(d) We can increase our suffering.

9. What is Maitri?
(a) Acceptance of ourselves.
(b) Full relaxation.
(c) A Tibetan term for hope.
(d) Deep breath.

10. What are the three lords of materialism?
(a) Obstacles to achieving Nirvana.
(b) Ways we maintain an "illusion of security."
(c) Sins.
(d) An attachment to status and material goods.

11. What is the "foundation" of bodhichitta training?
(a) Meditation.
(b) Love.
(c) Generosity.
(d) Teaching.

12. What does the author compare with the rawness of a broken heart?
(a) Bodhichitta.
(b) Nirvana.
(c) Meditation.
(d) Yoga.

13. Who are the two witnesses that Chodron writes about?
(a) The inner and outer critic.
(b) The teacher and student.
(c) The self and other.
(d) The male and female.

14. What is the first lord of materialism?
(a) Form.
(b) Personal style.
(c) Sensuality.
(d) Function.

15. How many steps does the aspiration practice for compassion have?
(a) Seven.
(b) Five.
(c) Four.
(d) Three.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the author call "those who train wholeheartedly in awakening unconditional and relative bodhichitta"?

2. What does the author claim is the gift of understanding that uncertainty is part of life?

3. What does the author argue that we do to sow the seeds of our own suffering?

4. What three difficulties does the slogan "train in three difficulties" encourage?

5. Who did Atisha take with him from India to Tibet?

(see the answer keys)

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