Reviews
Roshi Joan Halifax
“An extraordinary and invaluable guide to life and practice by a meditation master whose great compassion has brought the dharma to our everyday lives.”
Author of Standing at the Edge and Abbot of Upaya Zen Center
Library Journal
Famed Tibetan Buddhist master Rinpoche and co-author Wu (history, Agnes Scott Coll.) posit that discovering intrinsic dignity is key to recognizing and accepting one’s inherent worth, a process that subsequently enables people to achieve the goal of helping others. This recognition is integral to who people are and what they do in their lives. Rinpoche, ordained by the Dalai Lama, draws on Buddhist concepts and teachings, as well as his own personal accounts, to convey the necessity for readers to experience and know their actual self. This is accomplished by working to know one’s mind and how it functions. Arranged in three parts: “Your Nature Is Pure,” “You Can Change,” and “Gaining Certainty and Trust,” each chapter concludes with “Dignity Training” exercises, such as breathing and visualization techniques, and “Inspirational Support,” which features relevant quotations to further motivate the reader.
VERDICT: A hopeful and easily accessible handbook written with clarity and authenticity, for those interested in exploring Buddhist teachings or simply hoping to improve the quality of their own lives and the lives of others.
Publishers Weekly
In this illuminating volume, Tibetan Buddhist teacher Phakchok Rinpoche (In the Footsteps of Bodhisattvas) and history professor Wu offer wisdom for cultivating a sense of dignity. Contending that dignity is an innate quality of “fundamental wholeness and completeness,” the authors explain how emotional fixation can cause individuals to lose touch with their dignity and how they can reconnect. They describe the “sticky mind” phenomenon in which one ruminates about an incident or feeling, blinding oneself to the “constantly changing” emotions that flow through the self and growing alienated from one’s dignity. To escape this mindset, the authors encourage readers to acknowledge negative emotions and replace them with more positive ones (e.g., humbleness for pride). Each chapter ends with a “dignity training” exercise, such as chanting a mantra to enhance focus or embracing loving-kindness by wishing others well while meditating. What the authors refer to as “dignity” is largely equivalent to the Buddhist concept of “basic goodness,” but the fresh framing offers new insight. Additionally, readers will appreciate the accessible prose and the authors’ compassionate tone. This enlightening outing delivers.
Jan Willis PhD
“In this delightfully engaging book, renowned teacher Phakchok Rinpoche teams up with scholar and longtime student of Rinpoche Sophie Wu to offer us an entirely accessible yet truly profound exploration of dignity as stable confidence in our own true nature. Awakening and cultivating our innate dignity cures us of feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy, self-doubt, and incompleteness. With ‘dignity training’ exercises—contemplative practices that help us to touch and grow our innate dignity—along with edifying stories and lively examples, this is a jewel of a text, and genuine medicine for what ails us.”
Author of Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist and Dharma Matters: Women, Race, and Tantra
Tsoknyi Rinpoche
“Phakchok Rinpoche has been practicing the deepest part of his tradition in retreat and experiencing the essence of authentic Dharma. “In Awakening Dignity, Phakchok Rinpoche combines his depth of understanding with his sharpness and ease to offer profound teachings in an open, easily understood way. This highly accessible book will benefit any reader.”
Author of Open Heart, Open Mind
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
“In this book, Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche taps into the essence of fearless dignity and provides a step-by-step experiential process to gently clear away the layers of “clouds” (habitual patterns) that obscure certainty in our innate basic goodness. In this way, Rinpoche guides us to recognize our own true nature and deftly illustrates how such recognition is an essential first step in seeing the fundamental nature in all beings. By providing the tools for stabilizing this clear view of unchanging reality, Rinpoche helps us cultivate the skillful means to treat ourselves and others with more awareness, loving-kindness, compassion, and wisdom. I wholeheartedly recommend this book for all who wish to find happiness and fulfillment in their lives.”
New York Times best-selling author of The Joy of Living
Kit DesLauriers
“The concept of dignity is one that many of us think we unde rstand, yet precious few truly do. Personally, I was among them until reading this book by Phakchok Rinpoche. Although I have long worked on cultivating compassion and wisdom, it was only after reading Awakening Dignity that I realized the essential role dignity plays in understanding who I really am and my full potential. Rinpoche’s heartfelt gift to the world is to provide the knowledge and path for learning that dignity is our pure nature beyond how we usually identify ourselves. To begin on the journey to realizing our inner dignity, we need an introduction, and this book is it.”
2019 US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, two-time World Freeskiing Women’s Champion, and author of Higher Love: Climbing and Skiing the Seven Summits
Sharon Salzberg
“Dignity is something we all possess but may not readily understand or recognize as being part of our true nature. Awakening Dignity offers teachings and practices that help us see and deal with any obstacles in our way. Written with clarity and a pertinent connection to our daily lives, you don't need to be a Buddhist to gain insight from this lovely book.”
Author of Lovingkindness and Real Change
Richard J. Davidson
“Awakening Dignity is a beautiful, compelling, and practical guide to living a more fulfilling life—meaning a life filled with inner dignity. Phakchok Rinpoche, along with his student and coauthor Sophie Wu, guides readers in a highly accessible, step-by-step fashion—and offers simple ‘dignity training’ meditation exercises to help readers incorporate the teachings into their lives. Rinpoche wisely draws upon traditional Buddhist sources as well as his remarkable life and teachers. This book will appeal to anyone who is seeking to flourish.”
New York Times best-selling author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain and founding director of the Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche
“Phakchok Rinpoche is an emerging stakeholder of the Buddhadharma who has trained under some of the greatest teachers of the century. His efforts to create a dialogue between the Buddhadharma and western philosophy and thinking are greatly welcomed.”
Author of The Guru Drinks Bourbon? and Living Is Dying
Buddhistdoor Global
By Nachaya Campbell-Allen
“All in all, it is Rinpoche’s accessible language and warm delivery that make these lessons, and this book in general, such a worthwhile read. Like a parental hug reminding one that we are in safe hands, that we are loved, and that we are inherently luminous.”