When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, written in 1996 by Pema Chödrön, is a self-help and spiritual guidance book that aims to teach readers how to transcend the pain and anguish of daily life through Tibetan Buddhist mindfulness techniques. The book also explains how to use these practices to help reduce suffering in others. The work became a bestseller and generated increased interest in mindfulness meditation as a therapeutic and spiritually uplifting technique. Through the lens of Buddhist philosophy, the book explores the importance of acceptance in attaining serenity, embracing groundlessness, and the ways mindfulness promotes compassion.

Chödrön has been a leader in the Shambhala sect of Tibetan Buddhism in the US and Canada for several decades. Her books, lectures, and teachings have introduced thousands to mindfulness meditation, a popular secular practice in Western societies today.

The e-book version of the 20th-anniversary edition forms the basis for this study guide.

Summary

When Things Fall Apart is a compilation of edited talks Pema Chödrön gave in the years leading up to the book’s publication. The talks all center on the book’s central theme, that serenity comes from one’s acceptance of the world—and the self—as it is, and with loving kindness.

The first chapter introduces fear and encourages people to face and learn from it. Fear of uncertainty blocks people from truly engaging with life. When people feel afraid, they run away from the world and from themselves. The remedy, Chödrön purports, is to look directly at one’s anguish, hear its message, and move forward.

In Chapter 2, the author discusses what happens when things fall apart: one’s theories and illusions collapse, leaving the person bare to the world. Chödrön indicates that this is a moment of great potential: When people let go of preconceptions and accept willingly both the good and the bad of a given situation, the world opens up, prompting a renewed sense of aliveness.

The third chapter focuses on the lessons of discomfort. While it’s tempting to run away from discomfort, especially when one feels that they’re at their emotional limit, but when people can’t escape, they sometimes enter a state of egoless awareness that teaches them important things that normally they’re too well-defended to learn.

The fourth chapter introduces meditation, a way of practicing acceptance of all of one’s experience. By observing one’s thoughts and feelings during meditation, people learn to accept themselves as they are and cease to struggle against negative emotions. In accepting their minds, people become less tense and defensive, opening themselves up to the surprises of the world around them.

In Chapter 5, the author focuses on kindness toward oneself. When people self-criticize, using maitri, or loving kindness, during meditation gives one a chance to accept their feelings non-judgmentally. When one ceases self-condemnation, a spacious intelligence immediately fills in the gap, and maitri follows. Meditation allows for more of these gaps in the mental chatter, which the author sees as essential in a world filled with difficult circumstances.

The sixth chapter discusses desires and fears that sometimes cause people to behave in negative ways. Emotional tics, meant to protect one from negative feelings, instead distort behavior, harming oneself as well as others. Learning to accept feelings helps people refrain from distractive behavior and from being overly aggressive toward the people in their lives.

Chapter 7 discusses the fear and discomfort with death. The fear of death makes it impossible to fully engage with life. The author purports that when one finally admits that their ultimate destiny is to die, the person lets go of the clinging and grasping behaviors that distract them from the fear and instead accept the truth, giving them more freedom to engage in projects and friendships.

In Chapter 8, the author discusses the eight worldly dharmas, which are the primary forms of yearning and struggling people experience. These include pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace, and gain and loss. Letting go of these dichotomies allows people to have a more spacious attitude toward their world, and they begin to feel compassion for others as they struggle with their own gains and losses.

The subject of Chapter 9 is loneliness, which the author says can feel hotly unbearable, causing people to run from it by busying themselves with other people or otherwise distracting themselves. In meditation, one learns to accept the feeling, which transforms into a “cool” loneliness. This mood contains six attributes: less desire, contentment, avoiding busyness, complete discipline, not meandering among desires, and avoiding the false safety of rambling thoughts.

The 10th chapter discusses the four truths, or marks, that characterize life. The first three are impermanence, suffering, and egolessness. Despite their negative connotations, each provides an inroad to wisdom: Impermanence brings forth the new; suffering is a companion to joy; and egolessness brings openness and curiosity. These three lead to the fourth truth, peace.

Chapter 11 defines four obstacles to awakening. Each is called a mara, or demon. The first, devaputra mara, is one’s addiction to avoiding pain. The second, skandha mara, is resistance to disorienting change. With the third, klesha mara, one uses strong emotions to push back against troubles. The fourth, yama mara, is the denial of death. When one acknowledges these four demons without fear, they transform into allies that provide guiding wisdom.

In Chapter 12, the author discusses “growing up” in the spiritual sense. Books and lectures can teach about meditation, but only when one does the actual practice does the knowledge seep into them in a meaningful way. As one practices, they begin to grow up spiritually and become available to help others who are suffering.

The focus of Chapter 13 is compassion. Having opinions about what is right and wrong in the world creates separation between people. When one accepts their flaws and learns to live with ambiguity, they then can open their hearts to the thoughts and feelings of others while holding onto less resentment and resistance. In this newfound openness, a natural kindness emerges from their hearts. This bodhichitta becomes enhanced when one practices tonglen by in-breathing the pain of others and out-breathing happiness to them. This allows one to be present to the suffering of others without running away.

In Chapter 14, Chödrön describes how those who discover bodhichitta can become bodhisattvas, people dedicated to saving all sentient beings from suffering. The world needs more of them; in troubled times, they bring peace and the possibility of taking action, not out of opinionated anger, but from a compassionate, open-hearted intelligence even toward those who have done wrong.

Chapter 15 offers three methods to help people deal with chaos and problems: ceasing the struggle, using poisonous feelings as medicines, and seeing all events as manifestations of wisdom. These methods change one’s attitude toward things they’re afraid of or repulsed by, allowing them to engage fully instead of running away.

In Chapter 16, Chödrön describes how a teacher and student of the dharma may enter into a pact, samaya, in which they promise never to quit their work together until the student reaches awakening. People often enter agreements but leave themselves an escape route; samaya removes any means of escape, no matter how rough the path gets. This forces the student to directly face the pain they’ve been avoiding, which is the whole purpose of dharma study.

In the final chapter, the author reiterates that the modern age is increasingly torn by strife and chaos. Societies need more awareness and acceptance of the things that torment people, and fewer opinions. Mindfulness meditation and loving kindness are key aspects of a growing movement toward greater worldwide serenity.