Gratitude and appreciation

38 teachings in the library are about this.

Session Two - From Need to Care, and the Open Palm David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded July 18, 2026
David shifts the basis of a relationship from need to care, then reads Thich Nhat Hanh on loving in such a way that the person you love feels free. Contentment and gratitude come in as the medicine for attachment, and equanimity as the open palm rather than the fist closed around a songbird that has landed in it. David then guides a practice in which we turn towards the fear of things changing with reassurance rather than argument, and wish a loved one free. It closes on the group's own reflections.
Stress Isn't What the World Does to You David Oromith · 4 minutes · recorded May 17, 2026
A short extract. David on a line he rejected outright when he first heard it, that stress is not what the world does to you but what you bring to the world, and on why he came to find it freeing rather than a way of blaming people for their own difficulties.
The Psychology of Stress & Burnout David Oromith · 68 minutes · recorded May 17, 2026
The talk opens with a grounding meditation in which we settle the body and set an intention. David brings together the Buddhist view that stress is the gap between how we want things to be and how they are with Paul and Eve Ekman's psychology of demand versus felt resource, then works through the three stages of burnout: exhaustion, loss of meaning, and shutdown. He closes with the eight sources of well-being, including optimism, gratitude, connection and play.
Guided Meditation - Rejoicing in Your Own Life and the Good in the World David Oromith · 19 minutes · recorded April 19, 2026
Rejoicing starts with your own life history, with any goodness received from the world and any brought to it, however small. Then someone you care about at a moment of their excitement, their joy felt as your own and breathed in, with the phrase may your good fortune continue. It widens to people who inspire you and to the communities working for those in need, then to anyone you envy or resent, and comes back to you.
Practising with Joy: Lightness and Humour on the Buddhist Path David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded April 19, 2026
The evening opens with gratitude for a precious human life and closes with a longer empathetic joy practice in which we rejoice in good fortune, a loved one's happiness and even people you find difficult. David draws on the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu to show how humility frees us from self-preoccupation, and how joyful effort, reframing, humour and gratitude counter the mind's negativity bias. He shares his own depression and homelessness as reframed hardship.
That was the River, This is the Sea David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded February 15, 2026
In the gratitude meditation we move through the body, the home, our relationships and the natural world. David reflects on a Waterboys lyric, that was the river, this is the sea, and uses the image of a water slide to talk about letting go of an old version of yourself and accepting the life a difficult period has carried you into.
Session Two - Enthusiasm, People Pleasing and Contemplation David Oromith · 82 minutes · recorded October 15, 2025
The session opens with a guided meditation in which we drop from body sensation into resting in bare awareness itself, then continues through generosity, joyful effort and concentration among the six perfections. David explains the three kinds of giving, why generosity is spoiled by wanting something back, and pictures contentment and gratitude as floating in a reservoir, before setting out the three levels of wisdom: study, contemplation and meditation. Questions cover where generosity shades into people pleasing.
Guided Meditation - Precious Human Life, Motivation and Responsibility David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded September 10, 2025
Tension drained away on the out breath, then a contemplation built around the Dalai Lama's words about a precious human life. You recall the freedom and leisure you have, and the kindness received from countless beings, and let that gratitude turn into responsibility and a determination held alongside joy. If it fades, go back to the contemplation.
S2 - Applying the Path Where You Are David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded September 10, 2025
The session opens with a twenty minute guided meditation on the preciousness of human life, drawing on the Dalai Lama's reflection to arouse gratitude and resolve. David turns to self-reliance: the Buddha's advice to Ananda to be your own island, balanced against relying on teachers, and uses the leaking boat and the bike with stabilisers to explain ethics, calm and wisdom. Questions cover leaving a toxic WhatsApp group and noticing calmer reactions over time.
Guided Meditation - Loving Kindness and Appreciation for Spiritual Friends David Oromith · 20 minutes · recorded September 3, 2025
Loving kindness turned towards the people who keep a practice alive. David starts with early influences, anyone who showed you kindness and led you towards the spiritual life, then one particular spiritual friend, then your wider Sangha, and finally the lineage of teachers behind your own teacher. Each is appreciated, then wished well.
D5S3 - Empathetic Joy, and Delighting in the Good Fortune of Others David Oromith · 91 minutes · recorded August 22, 2025
The third immeasurable, and the most uplifting: being happy with someone rather than only for them, on the understanding that joy is not locked inside one person. David says this one comes to life out in the world, and tells of a low, isolated spell when he could not face going outside but could watch kids playing and a dog running after a ball from his window, and feel delight instead of the miserly mind asking why he did not have that. Questions afterwards on giving within our means, and on sustaining motivation when shamatha is not all or nothing.
D8S5 - The Retreat's Closing Visualisation and Dedication Lama Alan · 42 minutes · recorded June 12, 2025
The retreat's closing guided practice, a fourfold visualisation on flourishing: what genuine happiness looks like now, what is needed from the world to reach it, how one would like to grow, and what one would most want to offer others. Lama Alan pictures light radiating from the heart with each aspiration, dedicates whatever benefit has come from the week, and closes with thanks to those who organised the retreat. The group offers him a verse of gratitude in return.
Session 3 - Cultivating Bodhicitta & Generosity David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded February 5, 2025
In the guided meditation we work through the sevenfold cause-and-effect method for cultivating bodhicitta, recognising all beings as having once been a mother, then building gratitude, loving-kindness and great resolve. David contrasts this with the equalising and exchanging method, then turns to the first paramita, generosity, described as a state of mind rather than an act, using the story of a poor woman's simple offering to the Buddha. Questions cover how expectation can quietly poison giving.
Session 2 - Practices for Inner Joy David Oromith · 71 minutes · recorded January 19, 2025
The session opens with a short meditation on gratitude in which we notice where appreciation is felt in the body. David then describes three doorways to joy: living kindly, the calm that meditation brings, and a settled confidence he calls the joy of knowing, alongside practices of empathetic joy, rejoicing and harvesting delight from ordinary moments. Questions cover keeping compassion for others in balance with self-care, and what to do on waking in a low mood. It closes with a guided harvesting joy practice.
Guided Meditation - Repaying Kindness with Affectionate Love David Oromith · 22 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
The kindness you have received is counted up: parents, teachers, friends, strangers who helped once, and the people who grow the food, maintain the infrastructure and care for the environment around you. Gratitude turns into a wish to repay it by using this precious human life for others. David then asks for a vast gathering of beings visualised around you, friends, strangers and those you find difficult, held in affectionate love and great compassion.
Guided Meditation - Recognising the Kindness of All Beings David Oromith · 23 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
Beginning again from the recognition that every being has been your mother, we go through the kindness itself: the nine painstaking months carried, the night feeds, the bathing, the silly faces made just to raise a smile, the hands held through first steps, the words repeated until you could form them. Each stage is extended to all beings across countless lives. It closes on this life, and on the food, clothing and home that come from others' work.
Reflecting on the Last Year David Oromith · 26 minutes · recorded November 24, 2024
In the guided reflection meditation for the final session of the year we settle first into the body and its sensations, then look back gently over the year's joys and struggles with compassion and gratitude, rejoicing in whatever growth has taken place. David asks two questions to close: what positive changes we have noticed in ourselves this year, and what inner qualities we want to carry into the new one. Members share their own reflections in response.
Befriending the Mind Natalia Bojanic · 178 minutes · recorded November 9, 2024
Natalia Bojanic on the attitudes that make mindfulness possible: curiosity, non-striving, letting be and letting go, and generosity, offered as antidotes to boredom, agitation, aversion and doubt. Two thirds experiential, with guided meditations, mindful walking and stretching, journalling and discussion.
Relax & Go Easy On Yourself David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded September 15, 2024
A settling meditation that moves from the body into gratitude for the day ahead, then into setting a simple intention for how to show up. David talks about the pressure practitioners put on themselves to progress quickly, drawing on his own teacher's account of burnout among devoted students, and argues that consistency matters more than intensity. He closes with the reminder that patience with our own practice is itself a form of patient acceptance.
The Antidotes to Attachment and Navigating Loss David Oromith · 88 minutes · recorded April 17, 2024
The session opens with a short guided meditation in which we settle body, speech and mind, with refuge and bodhicitta. David completes his look at antidotes to attachment: non-attachment, contentment, gratitude and generosity, using the image of a bird resting on an open palm. He turns to loss, telling the story of Kisa Gotami and the mustard seed, and separates the cognitive work of understanding impermanence from the compassion grief itself needs. Questions bring up chronic illness, bipolar and the loss of a parent.
Guided Meditation - Gratitude and Appreciation David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded February 18, 2024
Gratitude is generated deliberately, first for the breath, then for the heartbeat, then for this human body and the unique mind without which there would be no experience. David quotes a teacher: as long as we are breathing, there is more right here than there is wrong. It widens to the room and its sounds, the home, hot water and a fridge, the people behind everything you own, and the planet. The last minutes are your own.
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.
D1S2 - Why Purification Came West, and Inviting the Lineage Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 90 minutes · recorded January 6, 2024
Tenpa traces how three month Vajrasattva retreats came to be offered to Western practitioners from the 1970s, a tradition begun by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and restates the key points of body, speech and mind. Loving kindness is guided for oneself, then for everyone on the retreat, then for all beings. The teaching turns to supplicating the lineage, and to mepa, the appreciation that Vajrayana rests on. A second practice invites that inspiration as light and nectar entering through the crown.
D4S4 - Vertical Love and Horizontal Love Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 61 minutes · recorded January 5, 2024
Two practices using imagery. The golden portal comes first, then drawing the strings of attention back in, breathing in particles of rainbow light that gather in the pearl below the navel, and breathing loving kindness out. Michael Lobsang Tenpa then gives Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche's two preconditions for recognising the ultimate nature of awareness: vertical love, appreciation and respect for realised beings, and horizontal love, the four immeasurables at full intensity. Three styles of teaching close.
Guided Meditation - Harvesting Joy, Finding Delight in the Ordinary David Oromith · 10 minutes · recorded November 6, 2023
The body first, searched for anything pleasant in it, comfort in the seat, clothes against the skin, the soothing rhythm of the breath. The eyes then open at least partly, for whatever is delightful to see, and after that whatever is delightful to hear, birds, wind chimes, or the relative silence. We let awareness roam the five senses, harvesting the small and trivial and multiplying it. It closes on gratitude for this precious human life and a dedication.
Turning Everyday Life into Dharma Practice David Oromith · 53 minutes · recorded November 6, 2023
No formal meditation until the close, a ten minute practice in which we harvest joy through the five senses and gratitude for this life. The talk is on turning everyday life into practice: difficult people become opportunities for patience and compassion, chores are done with mindful awareness rather than boredom, and pleasant experience is enjoyed with gratitude rather than craving more. Listeners share their own struggles, including a difficult mother and mindful eating with the television on.
Recognising The Kindness of All Sentient Beings David Oromith · 32 minutes · recorded November 5, 2023
In mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen we count each in-breath from one to seven, with guidance for a wandering mind or a dull, sinking one. David leads a contemplation on the kindness we have received throughout life: a mother's care, parents and teachers, farmers and strangers who make daily life possible, and this community itself. He draws out how recognising this kindness fills us with gratitude and a wish to repay it by offering the same kindness to others.
D1S4 - Appreciation, Empathy and Tenderness Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 64 minutes · recorded August 25, 2023
Three qualities that feed loving kindness before it starts. Stillness and the tactile waves are practised again first, then Michael Lobsang Tenpa works through appreciation, the quality usually translated as devotion, empathy in its cognitive and affective forms as Matthieu Ricard sets them out in Altruism, and tsewa, the basic warmheartedness he calls the stem cell of all four immeasurables. The hour of practice before dinner is spent looking at beings with eyes of caring.
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.
Week 2: When We Don’t Get What We Want - Transforming Disappointment (9 March 2023) David Oromith · 72 minutes · recorded March 10, 2023
The session opens and closes with a guided practice in which we settle awareness into the body, then count breaths at the nostrils in a breathing meditation. David looks at why we suffer when we cannot get what we want, tracing it to attachment's habit of exaggerating what a thing will give us. He tells the story of the nun who ended up needing a cow, and offers non-attachment, contentment and gratitude as the antidote. Questions range from technology frustrations to attachment versus ordinary worry.
Letting Go of Our Expectations David Oromith · 36 minutes · recorded October 16, 2022
This week's meditation is an inquiry practice: we move through the body's earth, water, fire and air elements, asking whether any sensation is stable, pleasant or truly ours. David talks about expectation as the foundation of failure, the advice the Dalai Lama once gave his own teacher. He distinguishes wholesome aspiration from attachment, and explains how gratitude and contentment let expectation fall away.
Anger-Eating Demon David Oromith · 30 minutes · recorded March 13, 2022
The meditation is a gratitude practice: we picture sunrise and settle into appreciation for the breath, the body, the mind and the people around us, closing with a few spoken affirmations. David tells the story of the anger eating demon, who grows monstrous with every threat and shrinks with every kindness. He draws out the lesson for anger at people, physical pain and unpleasant emotions alike, that what we resist persists and what we welcome softens.
Aversion in Response to Tragedy David Oromith · 35 minutes · recorded February 27, 2022
In the meditation we return to relaxation, noticing what changes in the body with each in and out breath, counting for focus, and closing with gratitude for this life. Responding to the war in Ukraine, David talks about telling anger apart from compassion, both arising from seeing suffering. He explains that anger's object is someone to hurt while compassion's object is those in pain, and that only compassion is genuinely active and helpful.
D5S2 - Practise What Is Important Lama Alan · 81 minutes · recorded January 1, 2022
The closing aphorisms, and the end of the transmission of the text. Lama Alan Wallace explains the distinctive ones: those who harm you, the ones to focus on, then your teachers, your parents and bodhisattvas, with whom both virtue and non-virtue are heavy. He works through practise what is important, do not be bound by distemper, and do not yearn for gratitude. Questions follow on whether to study or first work on your own mind, and from a monk facing conscription who may be sent to fight.
Working Through a Challenge or Question In Our Life David Oromith · 30 minutes · recorded September 12, 2021
After settling the breath and counting twenty-one rounds, you choose one live challenge and hold it in body awareness rather than fix it straight away. David guides an investigation into the beliefs and fears underneath it, then a step back to view it from a wider, more neutral perspective, before asking what the next right step might be. There is no separate talk this week; David closes with a birthday reflection on gratitude and impermanence.
The Beauty of Gratitude David Oromith · 11 minutes · recorded August 1, 2021
In this episode, David explores the 'superpower' that is gratitude. Gratitude is supremely important for our well-being and can really turn our day around and bring a radical shift to our life. It’s very easy for us to get fixated on the things that are wrong: what we don’t have, what we need, what isn’t working, what needs fixing. In the midst of this, we can lose sight of all that we do have, everything that is going well, what is working, what doesn’t need fixing.
Guided Meditation - Starting Your Day With Gratitude David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded August 1, 2021
This is a guided meditation on gratitude. It is best listened to in the morning, to start your day with a clean slate and an intention to express appreciation for all the things in your life, from the small day-to-day enjoyments to your health, and the bigger challenges that help you grow and make you who you are.
Guided Meditation - Empathetic Joy, Rejoicing in Others' Virtues and Your Own Lama Alan · 24 minutes
Lama Alan Wallace guides the third of the four immeasurables, empathetic joy. You bring to mind someone whose good cheer and well-being you know well, then someone whose kindness, generosity and wisdom visibly benefit others, and with each out-breath you send light from your heart, rejoicing in their happiness and their virtues. You then turn inwards, delighting in your own past joys and your own goodness, before releasing all objects into open knowing.

Gratitude and appreciation

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