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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the author encourage readers to question the "strategies of the ego"?

2. What does the author claim that sitting meditation cultivates?

3. What are the three characteristics of human existence?

4. What does the author cite Trungpa RInpoche as teaching?

5. How does Bodhi translate?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is bodhichitta?

3. What aspiration is used in the practice of loving-kindness?

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

5. What image of maitri does Chodron use to explain the concept?

6. What do Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa have in common, according to Chodron?

7. Chodron asserts that there are two options in life. The first is "to grow up and relate to life directly." What is the second?

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

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

10. What does Chodron compare to "tapping into a spring of living water that has been temporarily encased in solid rock"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What does Chodron say is like tapping into a spring? What is the importance of this comparison to the overall argument of this book?

Essay Topic 2

Does the author present herself as an authority on the topic of Buddhism? How?

Essay Topic 3

What does Chodron mean when she says to do no harm? Why does she argue that this is beneficial? What makes it difficult?

(see the answer keys)

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