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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Chondron describe our "fundamental energy"?
(a) As "unpredictable, like a leaf on the wind."
(b) As "essentially good."
(c) As "loving and generous at its very core."
(d) As "tender, wholesome and fresh."

2. What does Chodron believe that we should do with the emotions related to our experiences?
(a) We should notice the ways in which we can alter our circumstances to make ourselves happy.
(b) Become intimate with them.
(c) Ignore them.
(d) Pretend that we feel positive, until it becomes our true feeling.

3. Which of the following does the author warn that meditation can become when meditation practitioners do not pay attention to their negative emotions?
(a) Selfish.
(b) Repression.
(c) Hurtful.
(d) Wasted time.

4. What is the second of the three lords of materialism?
(a) The lord of work.
(b) The lord of speech.
(c) The lord of greed.
(d) The lord of competition.

5. What does the author claim Martin Luther King is an example of?
(a) A master warrior.
(b) A person who put love first.
(c) A true teacher.
(d) A truly centered person.

6. What are the lojong teachings for?
(a) Opening the heart.
(b) Training the mind.
(c) Finding a good feeling.
(d) Seeking spiritual guidance.

7. What does Chodron write we cannot do without loving-kindness for ourselves?
(a) We cannot achieve our optimum physical health.
(b) We cannot give up control, or "truly understand" that the world is full of love.
(c) We cannot be happy, and enjoy our own good fortune.
(d) It is difficult, "if not impossible," to love others.

8. Where does the title of the book come from?
(a) A sacred scripture.
(b) A quote from Ghandi.
(c) Buddha.
(d) A quote between a teacher and student.

9. Which does Chodron consider more emotionally challenging: loving-kindness or compassion?
(a) Loving-kindness, because it is easy to want to retaliate.
(b) Compassion, because it involves looking at things in a new way.
(c) Compassion, because it involves feeling pain.
(d) Loving-kindness, because people can be annoying.

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

11. What are the three characteristics of human existence?
(a) Mediocrity, disinterest, and distraction.
(b) Change, adaptation, and unsatisfied expectations.
(c) Love, hope, and peace.
(d) Impermanence, egolessness, and suffering.

12. What does Chodron believe that the teaching of the three marks of existence can motivate us to do?
(a) "Understand the nature of love."
(b) "Stop struggling against the nature of reality."
(c) "Meditate well from the moment we begin."
(d) "Accept spiritual teachings."

13. What is the compassionate aspiration that the author begins with as she begins to teach?
(a) She expresses her wish to introduce her students to ideas that will open their minds to a new kind of Buddhist thought.
(b) The aspiration that her students enjoy their class as much as she enjoys teaching.
(c) The desire to help all of her students to feel enough compassion for themselves that the students can reach Nirvana.
(d) The wish that her students can apply the teachings to free themselves and others from suffering.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the synonym for sitting mediation used by Chodron?

2. What is the first lord of materialism?

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

4. How many steps does the aspiration practice for compassion have?

5. What does Chodron claim is the most difficult step in any practice?

(see the answer keys)

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