Relaxation

41 teachings in the library are about this.

Session Two - The Natural Warmth of Awareness David Oromith · 80 minutes · recorded July 21, 2026
In two guided practices we rest in awareness of awareness and then let warmth in on the in breath, without it feeling manufactured. Between them David reads Tsoknyi Rinpoche on essence love, and Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo on our being something jewel-like rather than worthless. Gold covered in dirt is plunged into the water of awareness rather than scrubbed, and the frightened, contracted part of us is warmed like ice rather than broken with a hammer. It closes on a question about bliss, and a dedication.
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.
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.
D4S2 - The Third Balance, and the Search for Where Mind Exists Lama Alan · 90 minutes · recorded June 12, 2025
A last session of mindfulness of breathing adds vividness to relaxation and stability already practised, likened to a guitarist's final notes growing softer as the audience listens closer. Lama Alan turns to Dudjom Lingpa's claim that mind, not body or speech, is primary, then investigates where a thought comes from and where it rests. He uses recognising someone by their face to show what counts as observing the mind.
D4S1 - Motivation, Guru Devotion and Entering the Path Lama Alan · 89 minutes · recorded June 12, 2025
The evening opens with a retranslated line from the liturgy, then Lama Alan offers 'taste of the town' as an image for a week's sampling of Dzogchen. Mindfulness of breathing is guided through relaxation balanced with effort, and questions turn to receiving a teacher's blessing without becoming dependent on it. He begins the root text: ethics as the foundation, and the steps of solitude and guru supplication that open the path.
D3S3 - Combining Relaxation and Clarity in One Session Lama Alan · 128 minutes · recorded June 5, 2025
Lama Alan shows how to combine mindfulness of breathing with shamatha focused on the mind, using the breath to relax and the mind practice to sharpen clarity, distinguishing two kinds of vividness: noticing subtler thoughts, and noticing them faster. He explains why letting the mind wander while staying aware can bring genuine creative insight, then answers a question on how much progress is possible without a long retreat.
Guided Meditation - Mindfulness of Breathing for Relaxation David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded January 19, 2025
This is a guided mindfulness of breathing meditation, designed to help you relax and release tension and stress. This meditation can help you to bring about a sense of focus, calm and wellbeing into your day.
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.
Session 1 - Practices for Relaxation David Oromith · 69 minutes · recorded January 19, 2025
David opens by naming why so many of us live from a baseline of stress, then leads a longer guided meditation of settling body, speech and mind in their natural state, followed by mindfulness of breathing. He explains shamatha and its three qualities of relaxation, stillness and alertness, and how daily practice builds a calmer baseline rather than forcing a blank mind. The session closes with a second guided practice, open presence with all five senses.
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.
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.
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.
D2S2 - The Three Poisons Behind Our Reactions David Oromith · 84 minutes · recorded August 31, 2024
In the shamatha practice we cultivate relaxation through mindfulness of breathing, with shavasana as one option. David works through the second verse, showing that leaving one's homeland is really about the three poisons of attachment, aversion and delusion, which travel with us wherever we go. Discussion covers anger at injustice, patient acceptance when a situation cannot be changed, and offering the victory to defuse an argument without needing to be right.
Day 1 - Introduction David Oromith · 59 minutes · recorded August 24, 2024
The retreat opens with a meditation on settling body, speech and mind through relaxation, stillness and alertness. David then introduces the 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas, telling the story of Gyelse Togme Zangpo giving his robes and blood to a diseased beggar, and outlines how the week will move through samatha, the four immeasurables and tonglen. He closes with the text's opening homage, on how emptiness and compassion stand together, and takes a question on how discussion will work.
Reducing Attachment Whilst Still Enjoying Hedonic Happiness David Oromith · 30 minutes · recorded February 4, 2024
In the body scan meditation, good for relaxation and well suited to lying down, we move attention slowly through the whole body. David talks about the difference between worldly happiness, which is real and fine to enjoy, and the lasting well-being that comes only from within. He shares a story of holding a bird loosely on an open palm rather than gripping it in a fist, showing how to enjoy life's pleasures without grasping at them, in the world but not of it.
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.
Etymologies, Why Mindfulness of Breathing, and Mindfulness of Breathing (Abdomen) David Oromith · 85 minutes · recorded January 23, 2024
In the guided meditation on mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen we use the rise and fall of the belly and a count to seven to build stability after last week's relaxation. David explains the three qualities of shamatha as roots, trunk and foliage, walks through the etymologies of dharma, bhavana, samadhi and shamatha, then sets out why mindfulness of breathing suits a busy, ruminating mind. Questions cover needing a teacher, meditating amid noise, and adapting the practice with a cold.
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.
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.
Week 1: Introduction to Mind Training - Rising to the Challenge (2 March 2023) David Oromith · 82 minutes · recorded March 3, 2023
This new course on lojong, Buddhist mind training, opens with a short relaxation meditation to settle the group. David explains that we cannot stop difficulties happening, only stop them robbing us of our peace, using the spark, fuel and flame image and Shantideva's line: if there is a solution why worry, and if there is none why worry. Questions explore turning anger into compassion, separating regret from guilt, and the habit of rehearsing arguments that never go as planned.
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.
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.
Guided Meditation - Deep Relaxation for Sleep David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded May 24, 2021
This is a guided meditation designed to help you unwind and relax your body ready for a good night's sleep. By bringing awareness into the body and consciously relaxing individual areas of the body, we allow the mind to let go of rambling thoughts and come to settle in a calm, witnessing mode. This soothing meditation will help take you into a deep, restful sleep.
Guided Breathing Meditation for Relaxation David Oromith · 15 minutes · recorded March 16, 2020
This is a 15-minute guided breathing meditation, designed to help you totally relax and release the turbulence of thoughts and feelings that can plague your mind. This meditation will help you to uncover the natural inner peace, sense of wellbeing and genuine happiness that is already there within your own mind. Meditation is a method for calming the mind and developing a positive approach to life. Through meditation, we can learn to deeply relax, gain control of our feelings and emotions, find inner strength, and let go of negative states of mind such as stress and anxiety.
D2S4 - The Third Balance: Vividness Lama Alan · 43 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019
Vividness is the third quality to cultivate, after relaxation and stability. The practice is the classic Theravada one, attention narrowed to the sensations of the breath at the nostrils. Lama Alan Wallace warns that the eyes must stay soft and out of it, since focusing them on the target area brings on headaches. He then adds introspection as quality control, catching excitation and laxity, and offers counting one to ten as a speed bump for a wandering mind.
D2S3 - What Materialism Cannot Explain Lama Alan · 99 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019
The Burmese method of mindfulness of breathing, attention on the rise and fall of the abdomen, chosen here to enhance stability without losing the underlying ease. Lama Alan Wallace tells how Stephen LaBerge's recurring dream monster kept coming back until he gazed into its eyes and thought, you're just like me, wishing for happiness, at which it dissolved into his heart and never came back. Most of the teaching is a case against materialism: no theory of consciousness in 150 years, and the luminous ether as his parallel.
D2S2 - Falling Asleep and Becoming Lucid Lama Alan · 65 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019
In Asanga's approach to mindfulness of breathing we attend to the sensations throughout the whole body correlated with the rhythm of the respiration, relaxing more deeply with every out breath without losing clarity. Lama Alan Wallace then offers it as a way to fall asleep, practised in the shavasana until the waves of drowsiness come in, rather than reaching for medication. He goes through the three researched routes into a lucid dream, and what to do when one starts to fade: rub your body, spin.
D1S3 - Relaxation Before Stability, and What Makes a Desire Afflictive Lama Alan · 115 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019
What separates a strong desire from an afflictive one. Lama Alan defines craving and attachment as decontextualising their object and rooted in misapprehension, so even a little is toxic, and treats hostility and hatred the same way, quoting Bhikkhu Bodhi that there are times for moral outrage. He puts relaxation, stability and vividness in that order, since concentration without relaxation burns people out. The guided practice is mindfulness of breathing, whole body first, then the abdomen.
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 - Visualisation for Dream Yoga, Orbs of Light at the Throat and Heart Lama Alan · 21 minutes
Lama Alan Wallace teaches two visualisations for the night. You place a small, deep ruby red orb of light inside the throat and let your awareness descend into it and take its form, a gentle shamatha weighted towards relaxation and stability rather than vividness, which you carry into sleep for lucid dreaming. Lama Alan then moves the orb down to the heart as deep sapphire blue, for lucid dreamless sleep, closing with a dedication of merit.
D1S4 - Mindfulness as Remembering, and Introspection as Quality Control Lama Alan · 76 minutes
The session opens with a twenty four minute guided practice in which we take the three qualities in order: whole body awareness for relaxation, the abdomen for stability, the nostrils for vividness. The word rendered as mindfulness means to recollect, and Lama Alan draws out three types: retrospective, recalling the instructions; present-centred, bearing the breath in mind; and prospective, knowing what to do when attention strays. Alongside it runs introspection, quality control that catches laxity and excitation.
D1S3 - William James on Attention, and the Shamatha Project Lama Alan · 67 minutes
William James held that each of us chooses, by our ways of attending, what sort of universe we appear to inhabit. Lama Alan turns that on narcissism and on low self-esteem, and on why a materialist and a contemplative find different things obviously real. James also thought sustained attention a fixed trait; the three month Shamatha Project, with seventy subjects, showed otherwise. Relaxation supports stability, stability supports vividness, and skipping a step ends in burnout.
Merging Mind with Space Glen Svensson · 80 minutes
Awareness is directed up, right, left and down into space, then to the centre of the chest and out in all directions, loosening the sense that it is something small inside the head. Glen Svensson sets out what Buddhism means by mind: its definition as clear and knowing, the six consciousnesses, and the coarse, subtle and very subtle levels. He warns how easily stillness is mistaken for insight into emptiness. A second practice adds Padmasambhava's questioning, and we alternate looking with rest.
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 (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.

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