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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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.

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

4. What is maitri called in the Shamhala teaching?
(a) "Learning through questions."
(b) "Being our own mother."
(c) "Placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving kindness."
(d) "Avoiding hurting others to avoid feeling alone."

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the two witnesses does Chodron say we should hold?

2. What does the author claim that lojong slogans or the slogans of Atisha can help us do?

3. What does Chodron claim is our relationship to reaching out to others?

4. What does Chodron argue happens when we harm others?

5. What hope does Chodron write that we should abandon?

Short Essay Questions

1. What do the vajrayana Buddhists believe about emotions?

2. Why does Chodron describe the experience of a young woman who was in a foreign country, surrounded by people throwing stones at her?

3. What ways does Chodron write that meditation can be misused?

4. What is tonglen?

5. What are the three principles that the Buddha taught to be characteristic of human existence?

6. What is the role of interconnectedness in the kind of training that Chodron proposes?

7. What are the qualities of maitri that are cultivated when we meditate?

8. Why does Pema Chodron argue that most of us sow the seeds of our own suffering?

9. What does the slogan "train in three difficulties" mean?

10. What is bodhichitta?

(see the answer keys)

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