June 02, 2026 · 7 min read
Pema Chödrön on Uncertainty: When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chödrön's teachings on uncertainty, groundlessness, and the wisdom of not-knowing. How to apply her insights when life becomes unmanageable.
Pema Chödrön's most famous book is When Things Fall Apart — and the title alone is enough to explain why her work resonates with millions of people who would never describe themselves as Buddhist.
She became a nun after two divorces and the collapse of her own life. This is not incidental to her teaching: her authority comes from having lived the dissolution she writes about, not from having avoided it.
The Core Teaching: Groundlessness as Practice
Most spiritual and self-help frameworks promise some version of stability — get the right practice, the right insight, the right habits, and you will find ground.
Chödrön's teaching is the opposite: the ground is always falling away, and learning to be in free fall is the practice.
She uses the Tibetan concept of bardo — the in-between state, the liminal space between what was and what will be. Most of us spend enormous energy trying to get out of bardo, to reach the other side as quickly as possible. Her instruction is to learn to inhabit it.
This is not masochism. It is the recognition that the resistance to groundlessness — the panic, the grasping, the desperate attempts to fix what is unraveling — produces more suffering than the groundlessness itself.
Tonglen: Breathing in Suffering
The most distinctive practice Chödrön teaches is tonglen — "giving and receiving." The instruction is counterintuitive:
Breathe in what is difficult, painful, unwanted. Breathe out relief, space, ease.
This is the inverse of most relaxation and visualization practices. Tonglen deliberately moves toward what is difficult. The logic: what we resist persists. When we can breathe into our own pain — and extend that capacity to breathe into the pain of others — the resistance dissolves and space opens.
This practice is particularly relevant for caregivers, healthcare workers, and anyone in sustained contact with suffering. Rather than protecting themselves from suffering (which leads to compassion fatigue), tonglen trains the capacity to be present with it without being overwhelmed.
Practical Application
When life is falling apart: resist the impulse to immediately fix, solve, or reframe. Sit with the discomfort for three breaths before doing anything. Not as self-punishment — as recognition.
When you encounter someone suffering: rather than immediately offering solutions, practice receiving what they're experiencing. Let it land.
When you feel groundless: instead of "when will this end?", try "what is actually here right now?" The shift from future-focused panic to present-moment inquiry is the heart of Chödrön's practical teaching.
Related reading
Recommended Reading
📚 Radical Acceptance — Tara Brach. A complementary Western clinical framework for working with what is difficult.
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