Distraction and attention

70 teachings in the library are about this.

I Can't Meditate, My Mind Is Too Busy David Oromith · 7 minutes · recorded June 2, 2026
A short extract from Motivating the Lazy Practitioner Within. David talks about what happens when we do a ten minute practice where the mind wanders the whole time and we think it was a waste, and why the wandering mind is not an obstacle to meditation, but the very fabric of it. He says, if meditation only worked when the mind was quiet, then we would not need it! He offers a small reframe: I can't focus, becomes I can't focus yet, as we remain open to growth rather than feeling defeated.
Guided Meditation - Simply Being with the Urge to Be Busy David Oromith · 19 minutes · recorded May 29, 2026
Refuge and bodhicitta open it, then the body is given permission to come to rest in stillness, the fidgeting and habitual moving being the evening's subject. The breathing slows, and each out breath releases thoughts rather than throwing them. We open attention wide to sounds, sensations and the movements of the mind, attentive without grasping at anything. Each time restlessness or boredom insists you should be doing something, David has you notice that and come back to simply being.
Session Two - The Laziness of Busyness David Oromith · 78 minutes · recorded May 29, 2026
The second laziness, too busy for practice, the one David calls the most disguised because it sounds so reasonable. The energy of busyness fills every gap: participants in one study chose an electric shock over fifteen minutes alone with their thoughts. David offers renunciation, not giving things up but not being fooled by the promise, and Oliver Burkeman's question of what gets your time. It closes with an experiment, noticing what the mind grabs when a gap appears.
Guided Meditation - Dzogchen, Looking for Where Thoughts Happen David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded March 18, 2026
Practised with the eyes at least partly open and the gaze soft. David has you look for where your thoughts actually happen, using an imagined oak tree, a distant lawnmower, the feel of velvet, until no place can be found and you rest in that limitless space. Then a step further, turning awareness towards awareness itself, and a reflection read aloud to close.
Guided Meditation - Mahamudra, Resting in Awareness While Thoughts Move David Oromith · 22 minutes · recorded March 11, 2026
David reads instructions from a Gelug Kagyu Mahamudra root text and comments as he goes, beginning with the seven-fold posture and the difference between awareness itself and what clouds it. You rest in the stillness of being aware while thoughts keep arising, noticed but not merged with, and near the end David asks where the mind actually is.
Overcoming Distraction in Daily Life David Oromith · 35 minutes · recorded February 8, 2026
In the shamatha meditation on the breath at the nostrils we use counting and the image of a cat watching a mouse hole to find the balance between alertness and ease. David talks about distraction as a strategy for avoiding discomfort, why phones offer a quick dopamine hit, and how training attention builds a tolerance for stillness and simple pleasures.
Ask Yourself This Question David Oromith · 31 minutes · recorded November 2, 2025
Mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils, with counting to help steady a wandering mind. David suggests that instead of always asking what practice to add, we should ask what we are already doing that perpetuates our suffering, pointing to the twenty years many of us will spend scrolling on our phones and Venerable Robina's comment about clean hoarders.
Guided Meditation - From the Breath to Awareness of Awareness David Oromith · 20 minutes · recorded October 15, 2025
It starts with settling body, speech and mind, dropping the grasping and planning rather than the thoughts themselves, and stabilising on the breath. Then it turns: you are asked whether you can be aware of being aware of the breath, and eventually to let the breath go altogether and rest in awareness itself.
Hope In Difficult Times David Oromith · 36 minutes · recorded September 14, 2025
In the candle visualisation meditation we draw in the pain of the world as fuel that makes an inner light burn brighter, then breathe out compassion to push back the darkness. David talks about despair as the near enemy of compassion, how fixating on bad news skews our sense of reality, and how seeking out examples of goodness and empathetic joy restores a truer, more hopeful picture of the world.
D6S1 - Shamatha Without a Sign: Awareness of Awareness David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded August 23, 2025
The perfection of not doing, the one method with nothing to hold: we rest attention in its own nature, simply being aware of being aware, with no object at all. David reads Padmasambhava on shamatha without a sign and returns to the three words, relax, release and no return. He also reads Lama Alan on why solitude is found distressing, that without distractions we come face to face with our own minds with no buffer zone and no escape, and on the six prerequisites for this kind of training.
D5S1 - Taking the Mind as the Path: Watching Thought Without Following It David Oromith · 88 minutes · recorded August 22, 2025
We turn attention from the body to the mind itself: thoughts, images, memories and desires observed as they arise, play out and pass, without following any of them anywhere. David speaks personally about how this meditation helped with his own anxiety, because it totally changed his relationship with those anxious thoughts: the only power they have over you is the power you give them. He also warns of the version that only looks empty, where you are filling the space by talking your way through it.
D4S2 - The Buddha's Instructions to Bahiya, and the Stages of Attention David Oromith · 75 minutes · recorded August 21, 2025
A few lines the Buddha gave to Bahiya, who urgently wanted teachings, used here as preparation: in the seen let there be only the seen, in the heard only the heard, in the sensed only the sensed, in the cognized only the cognized, without labelling or identifying any of it. David then takes the first four of the nine stages shown in the elephant artwork, where the meditator chases a mind that is following the monkey of involuntary thoughts, and the powers, faults and antidotes that go with them.
D4S1 - The Dzogchen Approach to Mindfulness of Breathing David Oromith · 86 minutes · recorded August 21, 2025
The last of the breathing methods: we move attention off the sensations of the body and rest in awareness itself, noting only whether the breath is long or short. David takes it back to the Buddha's own instruction for mindfulness of breathing, to go to a forest, sit at the foot of a tree or find an empty room, sit with the back straight and establish mindfulness in front of you, and sets that beside the Dzogchen teaching of releasing awareness into the space ahead, eyes open, with no object of focus at all.
D3S2 - The Classic Method at the Nostrils, and Vividness David Oromith · 72 minutes · recorded August 20, 2025
The best known method of all, classic in the Theravada and also found in secular mindfulness: the sensations of air at the nostrils, as Buddhaghosa set it down. This is where vividness, the third quality, comes in, with the third of Lama Alan Wallace's balances, accentuating clarity without destabilising the mind. Narrowing the focus is not squeezing the mind through a straw. As the body calms it needs less oxygen, the breath becomes subtler, and the challenge is to attend to that.
D3S1 - Stability, and Counting the Breath at the Abdomen David Oromith · 89 minutes · recorded August 20, 2025
The Burmese method, attention narrowed from the whole body to the rise and fall of the abdomen, and with it the second of the three qualities: stability. David offers counting as training wheels, useful for breaking a session down into this breath rather than a stretch of time with minutes to kill, and something to take off again once the practice steadies. He also reads Buddhaghosa, for whom mindfulness has the characteristic of remembering and the function of not forgetting, and Asanga, who calls it the non-forgetfulness of the mind with respect to a familiar object.
D2S2 - Mindfulness of Breathing at the Whole Body, and Why Relaxation Comes First David Oromith · 75 minutes · recorded August 19, 2025
The first of the shamatha methods proper, following Asanga: attention on the sensations of the breath throughout the whole body rather than at one point. David makes the case for taking relaxation before stability and vividness, and for why a Western practitioner told to concentrate hard tends to clamp down, yank the mind back and get nowhere. He names the two failures to watch for, excitation and laxity, and why laxity, which runs from falling asleep to a dimness of attention that is not very sharp, is the harder of the two to describe.
D2 Morning Practice - Settling Body, Speech and Mind in Their Natural States David Oromith · 49 minutes · recorded August 19, 2025
A guided meditation on settling body, speech and mind in their natural states, repeating the practice done the previous evening. The first twenty minutes are guided throughout: we drop awareness into tactile sensations in the body, releasing tension in the face, neck and shoulders, then settle the breath into its natural rhythm, letting go of past and future until the mind comes to rest. The second twenty minutes are practised alone. David asks practitioners to take their time rather than rush.
D1S1 - Welcome, Noble Silence and the Shape of the Week David Oromith · 82 minutes · recorded August 18, 2025
David opens the retreat Samadhi inherited from the Contemplative Consciousness Network (CCN), and lays out the week: shamatha in the mornings, the four immeasurables in the evenings, and silence in between. He explains what a practical silence actually asks of you, why it is a relief rather than a rule, and how to hold the sense of stillness between sessions rather than only inside them. The session closes with posture and a short settling meditation.
Guided Meditation - Mindfulness of Breathing, Knowing the Long and the Short Breath David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded August 6, 2025
Mindfulness of breathing taught as a skill rather than a result. Relaxation comes first, and when the mind wanders the instruction is to relax rather than try harder. Later David adds the Buddha's simple aid to staying engaged over time, noticing whether each breath is long or short without trying to change it.
Guided Meditation - Settling Body, Speech and Mind David Oromith · 20 minutes · recorded June 18, 2025
Each out breath is taken as a chance to let go a little more, in the body and then in the mental commentary, until we rest attention on the in breath, the out breath and their rhythm. David then turns to introspection, noticing distraction quickly without tensing up, since distraction is not a failure, and lifting the mind when it sinks into dullness. It ends with your own most meaningful motivation.
D3S4 - Right Listening and the Limits of Watching Thoughts Lama Alan · 51 minutes · recorded June 12, 2025
A retreat as a deliberate withdrawal to regroup, not an escape, and three flaws that make listening to teachings useless: a distracted mind, a leaky one, or one full of assumptions. Lama Alan explains how Dudjom Lingpa comes by the text's title, smearing himself with mud and feathers to make an impression, then describes watching thoughts pass like calves on a plain, useful for beginners but not enough on its own.
Random Acts of Kindness David Oromith · 35 minutes · recorded May 4, 2025
In the loving kindness meditation we extend the wish for genuine wellbeing from ourselves outward to a loved one, a stranger and finally someone we find difficult. David talks about noticing the small kindnesses that rarely make the news, from a stranger helping push a stuck car free of mud to holding a door open, and about practising one small act of generosity a day while letting go of any need for thanks.
Guided Meditation - The Buddha's Words to Bahiya, Bare Awareness of the Six Senses David Oromith · 17 minutes · recorded March 26, 2025
Taking the Buddha's instruction to Bahiya, David works through the senses one at a time, body sensations, sight with the eyes open, sound, taste and smell, then mental activity, dropping the naming and the liking from each. The six are then opened at once into a choiceless awareness where experience simply happens, with no I needed to run it.
Training the Monkey Mind David Oromith · 31 minutes · recorded February 23, 2025
David returns to shamatha, calm abiding meditation, using the image of a monkey mind jumping from thought to thought that must be gently, patiently returned to the breath rather than yanked back in frustration. He talks about why noticing distraction is a sign the practice is working, not failing, and about learning to be with boredom in meditation until stillness itself becomes something to appreciate rather than escape.
D2S3 - Inner Solitude and the Impermanence of All Things David Oromith · 87 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
Building on relaxation, David introduces stability in shamatha, using counting at the belly to steady attention. The verse on solitary places turns out to be less about the physical setting than about a mind not swept along by distraction, shown through an experiment in which most people chose an electric shock over fifteen minutes alone with their thoughts. Questions range from a noisy neighbourhood to attachment inside a loving relationship.
S2 - Counting for Stability, and the Nostrils for Clarity David Oromith · 73 minutes · recorded October 29, 2024
Mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen, with two tools added: focusing with the in-breath and relaxing with the out, then a brief count of one to seven. In a second practice we narrow attention to the sensations at the nostrils, for clarity. David separates mindfulness from introspection and describes the early stages towards shamatha, where recovering from distraction more quickly can feel like getting worse. Questions cover posture, when and how long to practise, and memories surfacing as practice deepens.
S1 - Relaxation Comes First David Oromith · 71 minutes · recorded October 29, 2024
The session opens with settling body, speech and mind in their natural states, which is a preparation, then closes with mindfulness of breathing across the whole body, in which we note whether each breath is long or short. David explains what shamatha means and how excitation and dullness pull the attention in opposite directions. He takes the first of the three qualities, relaxation, and why trying harder only makes agitation worse. The two monks at the river carry the point about holding on.
Session 4 - Empathetic Joy David Oromith · 84 minutes · recorded October 8, 2024
The session opens with a short settling practice, then the teaching on mudita, empathetic joy: rejoicing in another's happiness rather than only our own. David sets out what gets in its way, comparison, judgment, envy, using Sharon Salzberg's monkey stuck in tar. Questions cover noticing joy in small creatures and unexpected jealousy. In the long guided meditation we extend joy through a joyful friend, a loved one, a stranger and someone difficult, closing with rejoicing in our own good qualities.
Session 3 - Empathetic Joy & Equanimity David Oromith · 58 minutes · recorded June 11, 2024
In the guided practice in empathetic joy we rejoice in our own good qualities, a loved one's happiness, and the kindness of strangers. David describes mudita as harder to sustain than it looks, distinguishes it from envy and cynicism, and tells how seeking joy in a local park helped him through depression. He then teaches equanimity, showing how we sort people into loved, neutral and disliked, and how true equanimity extends equal warmth to all three, unlike the flat indifference that mimics it.
Guided Meditation - Awareness of Awareness David Oromith · 20 minutes · recorded March 12, 2024
Practised with the eyes at least partly open and the gaze resting softly in the space in front of you. With each out breath David asks you to release all thought, all grasping, all doing, and simply sustain the bare sense of being aware. Then a second move, alternating with the first: look in on the one who is meditating, and release again.
Guided Meditation - Taking the Mind as the Path David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded March 5, 2024
Opening with refuge and bodhicitta, we settle through the body and then drop the five senses entirely for the domain of thoughts, images and emotions. If that feels elusive, David has you deliberately make a thought, then keep watching the same place for whatever appears next. Attend to everything equally, including the commentary saying nothing is happening.
Guided Meditation - Taking Appearances as the Path David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded February 28, 2024
David begins with twenty one counted breaths, then turns you towards whatever is appearing: the visual field in front of your partly open eyes, then sound, then the whole tactile field of the body, each met without labels, in the seen let there be only the seen. It closes with the mind itself, watching each thought arise, pass through and dissolve.
The Nine Stages (5-9) and Taking Appearances as the Path David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded February 28, 2024
David guides a cycling meditation from the Buddha's instructions to Bahiya: sight, sound and touch attended without labelling, eyes open, before turning to the mind and watching whatever arises. He then covers stages five to nine of shamatha, including the stage where suppressed memories and emotions surface and must simply be witnessed, not analysed. Questions cover floatiness and laxity, letting a mind that feels like it is floating away go safely, and whether practice changes who you are.
Guided Meditation - The Dzogchen Approach to Mindfulness of Breathing David Oromith · 22 minutes · recorded February 20, 2024
The breath taken by releasing rather than by holding on. With the eyes partly open and the gaze resting vacantly in space, each out-breath lets go of tension and of thinking, until awareness simply hovers in the present. David then has you notice that the rhythm of the breath rises up to meet you on its own.
The Nine Stages (1-4) and Dzogchen Approach to Mindfulness of Breathing David Oromith · 65 minutes · recorded February 20, 2024
The guided meditation follows Lama Alan's Dzogchen approach to mindfulness of breathing: we rest awareness openly with eyes open and only peripherally note the breath's rhythm rather than holding it as an object. David then works through the first four of the nine stages of shamatha, directed, continuous, resurgent and close attention, describing what is achieved at each and what still gets in the way. Discussion afterwards is brief, just a quick check on how the practice landed.
Gratitude & Appreciation David Oromith · 25 minutes · recorded February 18, 2024
The meditation is a gratitude practice: we begin with the breath and the heartbeat before widening out to the room, the home and the people we are grateful for. David explains why gratitude and contentment are natural antidotes to craving: when the heart already feels full, there is nothing left to grasp for. He recommends keeping some form of gratitude practice, however simple, calling it one of the few habits nobody regrets starting.
Guided Meditation - Mindfulness of Breathing at the Nostrils David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded February 1, 2024
The third of the breathing practices, with attention at the tips of the nostrils, wherever the passage of air is felt most distinctly, and the breathing left entirely natural. Counting comes in as light punctuation. For the last minutes David asks for enough closeness to notice the air cooler coming in and warmer going out.
Mindfulness & Introspection and Mindfulness of Breathing (Nostrils) David Oromith · 79 minutes · recorded February 1, 2024
In the guided practice on mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils we track the change in temperature between the in breath and the out breath. David explains vividness as the third quality of attention, alongside relaxation and stability, and describes mindfulness as a rope holding the breath, introspection as the hook that notices when it slips. Questions cover lights and sensations arising in practice, working with pain, and how this differs from mindfulness in modern Vipassana.
Guided Meditation - Mindfulness of Breathing at the Abdomen David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded January 23, 2024
We narrow the attention to the abdomen, using a hand on the belly if the sensations seem faint at first. We then bring in two tools, an oscillation that rouses attention on the in-breath and relaxes on the out-breath, and counting the breaths. We relax when the mind is busy and rouse effort when it goes dull.
Guided Meditation - Mindfulness of Breathing, Whole Body David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded January 16, 2024
A shortened settling of body, speech and mind, then awareness spread through the whole body until the rhythmic movements of the breath stand out, felt in the torso, arms and head as well as the belly. You simply note whether each breath is long or short, and meet distraction by relaxing rather than gripping tighter.
The Benefits of Improving Our Attention and Mindfulness of Breathing (Whole Body) David Oromith · 87 minutes · recorded January 16, 2024
A guided meditation on mindfulness of breathing across the whole body, following a shortened settling of body, speech and mind, with David explaining why relaxation rather than forceful concentration is the foundation shamatha needs. He sets out the Buddha's four kinds of worldly happiness alongside the three genuine forms of well-being, then the everyday benefits of trained attention: less stress, better sleep, more enjoyment of ordinary moments. Questions address staying calm around family and over-focusing on the breath.
D2S4 - Preparing for Death, and the Three Cleansings Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 62 minutes · recorded January 10, 2024
Purification as preparation for dying, opening with death and impermanence and the seven branch practice. Tenpa defines the pair of words that recur in these texts, misdeeds and obscurations, the second meaning here the factors that trigger afflictions and thoughts that block meditation. The commentary he quotes likens the practice to surgery rather than slow medicine, and to aiming at one problem such as anger. The long guided practice runs the whole text, with the hundred syllable mantra and the three cleansings.
Guided Meditation - Settling Body, Speech and Mind in Their Natural States David Oromith · 29 minutes · recorded January 9, 2024
The posture instructions come first, in detail, then three settlings. The body is held in relaxation, stillness and vigilance at once, the inner commentary is released with each out breath, and the mind is unburdened of hopes and worries until we rest awareness on the felt body. When it wanders, David asks you to relax deeper rather than try harder.
Guided Meditation - White Light at the Heart Centre David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded November 12, 2023
Twenty one counted rounds steady the mind, then a glowing white orb appears at the centre of the chest, no bigger than a golf ball, at the level of the heart. It is enough to imagine it is there. David calls this the root of the mind, where it converges in deep dreamless sleep and at the end of a life, and asks for a loose focus and the sense of meditating from there rather than behind the eyes.
A Candle in Darkness - Compassion in the World David Oromith · 35 minutes · recorded October 8, 2023
In the compassion meditation we use the image of ourselves as a candle: we breathe in strength for the flame using empathy for the world's suffering, then breathe out the wish that all beings find freedom from it, until other candles begin to light around us. Responding to a question about feeling overwhelmed by the news, David distinguishes empathy from despair, which he calls compassion's near enemy, and shares the Dalai Lama's insistence on never giving up.
Our Need to Be Liked & Approved Of David Oromith · 34 minutes · recorded September 17, 2023
In the meditation on the sky-like nature of mind we watch thoughts arise and pass like clouds while resting in the clear, spacious awareness beneath them. David talks about our need to be liked and approved of, seen in social media validation, peer pressure and people-pleasing at work, and why tying self-worth to others' opinions is such shaky ground. He offers loving kindness towards ourselves, reflecting on impermanence and the Dalai Lama's reminder that we carry Buddha nature.
Week 3: Empathetic Joy (Mudita): Sharing in the joy and happiness of others David Oromith · 86 minutes · recorded June 22, 2023
After checking in on the week's practice of loving kindness and compassion, David turns to mudita, joy at others' happiness, naming its near enemies, envy and cynicism, and using the image of a monkey stuck in tar for how comparison and judgement trap us. He describes noticing joy in daily life and on social media rather than resenting it. Questions move into acceptance and childhood hurt before a closing meditation in which we recall loved ones' joy and everyday kindness seen out in the world.
Connecting to Communities for Genuine Wellbeing Ondy Willson · 116 minutes · recorded May 4, 2023
Ondy Willson asks whether our trouble with anxiety and depression is partly a symptom of isolation, and answers by working outwards from the self to the communities around it. She sets out what Freud, Jung and Thich Nhat Hanh made of the self, then how conditioning hardens into habit and tendency, and which constructive emotions serve as antidotes. The rest is the effort connection takes, and what headphones, video calls and social media quietly cost us. Three guided practices run through.
The Six Paramitas - Mental Stability (Samadhi/Concentration) David Oromith · 35 minutes · recorded February 26, 2023
In this mindfulness of breathing practice we follow the rhythmic sensations of breath throughout the body, with a gentle count to seven offered as a way to hold concentration. David turns to the fifth paramita, samadhi, the organisation's namesake, meaning to unify the mind with what it attends to. He describes the four qualities of deep concentration, peaceful, sublime, blissful, and able to quell afflictions on the spot, and how poor attention leaves us stressed and at the mercy of our own thoughts.
S1 - The Mind Makes the Day, and Why We Fear Stillness David Oromith · 79 minutes · recorded January 12, 2023
After introductions round the room, David leads a ten to fifteen minute guided settling practice, relaxing body, speech and mind, breath by breath. The talk that follows is on why the same day can feel bright or unbearable depending on the mind we bring to it, citing research that many would rather feel pain than be alone with their thoughts. A long discussion covers posture, technology before bed, anxious thoughts, and building a daily practice by listing fifty reasons why it is good for you.
Exploring Our Vision of the Path Ondy Willson · 111 minutes · recorded July 15, 2022
Guided imagery as a way of surfacing what thinking cannot reach, and of finding a direction when you do not know which way to turn. Ondy Willson traces Freud on dreams and Jung on active imagination, and how imagery is used in therapy and medicine now. Most of the evening is the quest: a garden, a path with an obstacle and a distraction, a helper at the foot of a mountain, and a higher self at the top who gives a gift. Participants describe what they saw and she reads the symbolism back.
Is it a Duck or a Chicken? David Oromith · 27 minutes · recorded January 30, 2022
We settle our attention on the in-breath and the out-breath, using counting to steady a distracted mind, before resting in the spaciousness that follows. David tells Ajahn Brahm's story of the couple who argue over whether a sound is a duck or a chicken, and nearly let it wreck their evening. He talks about how certain we can feel about small things, and what matters more than being right.
Guided Meditation - Present Centring for Grounding and Relaxation David Oromith · 16 minutes · recorded January 7, 2022
This is a guided meditation on present centring. This practice is designed to help us bring ourselves back into the present moment when we have become lost in worries of the future or resentments of the past. Present centring is a skill that we need to develop in order to live mindfully and purposefully.
Striving for Perfection David Oromith · 10 minutes · recorded May 16, 2021
Prompted by a post on social media about perfectionism, David draws out how striving for perfect puts pressure on ourselves, on other people who never agreed to our standards, and on the possessions we expect to make us happy. He takes it back to the first noble truth, that this kind of pleasure does not last, is competitive by nature and cannot protect us from a bad day. It closes on doing what makes your heart sing. Teaching only, with no guided practice.
D1S2 - Inner Solitude, and Three Ways Into Shamatha Lama Alan · 109 minutes · recorded January 1, 2021
Solitude comes first: Lama Alan Wallace calls inner solitude, retreat from the eight mundane concerns, at least as important as the outer and far harder to achieve. He works through the seven qualities of Vairochana's posture, with Gyatrul Rinpoche's advice to find a posture comfortable for you, then the vital points of speech and mind. Three shamatha methods follow: resting unfabricated, imagining a ruby red HUM at the heart, or gazing at a stick or pebble. In the closing practice we try all three.
How to Stop Thoughts in Meditation David Oromith · 31 minutes · recorded April 22, 2020
In this episode, David addresses the question 'how to stop thinking 1000 thoughts during meditation?' Talking practically from his own experience and what's been taught by contemplatives for thousands of years, he explores key practices for those prone to rumination and suggests some helpful tips.
Why You Should Meditate David Oromith · 13 minutes · recorded April 6, 2020
In this episode, David answers the question 'Why Meditate?' and explains why everyone should meditate. When we first try to meditate, we notice that our mind is all over the place. This experience shows us how little control we have over our mind. Having so little control over our mind is the reason why we experience negative feelings and are not able to be happy. Meditation is more than just a fun way to relax, it is essential if we want to experience our deepest wish which drives our day-to-day life – the wish for lasting happiness and freedom from painful feeling.
D5S3 - Awareness of Awareness Lama Alan · 88 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019
Lama Alan Wallace takes up shamatha without a sign, awareness of awareness, which the Buddha counted among the ten kasinas and the subtlest of the methods Padmasambhava teaches. We use an oscillation of arousing the attention and releasing it into space, and three things mean you are doing it incorrectly: distraction, grasping, and losing clarity. Conduct between sessions follows: rely upon unwavering mindfulness, picking thought up and putting it down like a knife and fork.
P2 - Meditation, Conduct and Dying Well Lama Alan · 139 minutes · recorded January 1, 2017
Yangthang Rinpoche's text is blunt: without the view there is no meditation, only a cheap imitation of it, and poor preparation for death. The session opens with a guided practice in which we probe the mind for its colour, origin, location and destination. He works through meditation and conduct, the nine kinds of activity to be released, guru yoga and the four empowerments, why clinging to bliss, luminosity or non-conceptuality casts you into the desire, form and formless realms, and how to recognise the ground at death.
Guided Meditation - Settling Body, Speech and Mind in Their Natural States Lama Alan · 25 minutes
Lama Alan Wallace leads the three settlings in turn. You let awareness descend through the whole field of tactile sensation, releasing tension from shoulders, jaw and forehead until the body rests in relaxation, stillness and vigilance. Then you relinquish control of the breath and let the body breathe as if asleep, releasing involuntary thoughts with each out breath. Attention is finally held within the field of the body, like a horse in a corral, quietly observing whatever arises.
Guided Meditation - Awareness of Awareness Released into Open Presence Lama Alan · 24 minutes
You begin with the movements of the mind, attending to thoughts and images without distraction or grasping, then shift to the space they emerge from and ask whether that vacuity is simply nothing or a kind of something. Lama Alan then turns your awareness back upon itself, resting in the sheer event of knowing, and describes how this practice pursued intently implodes into the substrate consciousness. Finally the cord is cut and you rest in open presence.
Guided Meditation - Body Scan, Moving a Three-Dimensional Field of Awareness Through the Body Lama Alan · 41 minutes
Lama Alan moves a field of awareness slowly through the whole body, beginning as a small patch at the crown of the head and widening until it is three-dimensional. It travels down the head, arms, torso, legs and out to the toes, stabilising on each in breath and shifting on each out breath. Three faster sweeps follow, then the field opens to illuminate the whole body at once, with nothing added to what is sensed.
Guided Meditation - Settling the Mind in Its Natural State, with the Snorkelling Metaphor Lama Alan · 25 minutes
Lama Alan uses a snorkelling metaphor to move you in stages from the breath to the mind itself. Floating on an air mattress, you rest in the tactile field; then you dip your face beneath the water and turn part of your attention to the space of the mind. Handhold released, thoughts, images and reactions to sounds become the whole object, observed without grasping and without distraction, attentive but not reactive.
Attentional Balance Glen Svensson · 78 minutes
Attentional balance, the shamatha side of the model, where deficit shows up as laxity and hyperactivity as excitation, both met with mindfulness and introspection. Glen Svensson compares the full body, abdomen and nostril versions of mindfulness of breathing, and the merits of the breath, the mind and awareness as objects. Two guided practices: the rhythm of the breath with the emphasis on relax, release and return, then merging mind with space. Questions cover anxiety and mental afflictions held at an unconscious level.
Resting in Awareness Glen Svensson · 76 minutes
In the three-part guided practice we move from observing thoughts, to the space in which they arise, to releasing appearances altogether. Glen Svensson then introduces resting in awareness, the shamatha practice with no object but awareness itself, using Padmasambhava's instructions on gaze, relaxation and correcting laxity or excitation, and guides it in full. Tilopa's six words of advice follow. Questions ask whether thoughts vanish once observed, and what counts as distraction here.
Mindfulness of Breathing (Nostrils) Glen Svensson · 90 minutes
In this practice we narrow our attention to the entrance of the nostrils, which is said to be very good for clarity of attention, as the breath grows subtle and forces closer attention. Glen Svensson explains the acquired sign, a mental image of the air element that replaces the sensations as practice deepens, and completes the nine stages up to attentional balance, using a guitar string for the fine tuning of focus. He describes the physical and mental pliancy that marks shamatha itself. Questions cover shavasana, and how far to go without a qualified teacher.
Mindfulness of Breathing (Abdomen) Glen Svensson · 76 minutes
The abdomen becomes the object, the sensations of its rising and lowering, and counting to ten at the end of each in-breath is offered midway as a short term aid to stability. Glen Svensson draws out the coarse, medium and subtle levels of laxity and excitation, and what to do according to how strong each is, then walks the first four of the nine stages, up to close attention. A second practice follows, in which we release on the out-breath and sharpen focus on the in-breath. A participant asks whether moving through all four in one meditation is normal.
Mindfulness of Breathing (Full Body) Glen Svensson · 78 minutes
We rest attention on any tactile sensation in the body connected with the in and out flow of the breath, with the emphasis on relaxation. Glen Svensson takes up Alan Wallace's point that mindfulness of breathing is universally emphasised for those especially prone to compulsive thinking: the sensations of the breath only happen in the present moment, so attention comes out of the thinking mind and into the body. In a second practice we notice the rhythm of the breath, long or short, deep or shallow.
Tools & Faults Glen Svensson · 85 minutes
In an opening practice we take the rhythm of the breath as our object, noticing whether it is long or short, deep or shallow. Glen Svensson names two tools, mindfulness holding the object and introspection checking that it is still held, and contrasts that older sense with Jon Kabat-Zinn's. The five faults and eight antidotes follow, from laziness to over-application. A second meditation is guided lying down in shavasana, and four weeks of homework are set before Shantideva's dedication verses close.
Qualities & Objects Glen Svensson · 80 minutes
The teaching opens and closes with a guided practice on sensations of the breath throughout the body, with the out-breath used to release tension. Glen Svensson sets out the three qualities being cultivated, relaxation, stability and clarity, using Alan Wallace's image of the roots, trunk and foliage of a tree, and reads his account of trying too hard on retreat in India. He then compares the objects available, from the breath to observing the mind, awareness of awareness and a mental image of the Buddha.

Distraction and attention

Distraction and attention

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