Practice Library

The four thoughts that turn the mind

11 teachings in the library are about this.

• 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.

• 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.

• A Precious Human Life David Oromith · 29 minutes · recorded August 4, 2025

  A contemplative meditation built on the Dalai Lama's reflection on waking gratefully to a precious human life. David talks about how rare and fleeting this human life is, one of the four thoughts that turn the mind in the Tibetan tradition, and why we keep postponing practice for a better moment when now is the only time we actually have.

• D3S1 - Refuge, Devotion and the Two Causes of Suffering Lama Alan · 106 minutes · recorded June 12, 2025

  The refuge and bodhicitta prayers, examined line by line, with the image of trusting a dentist to explain what taking refuge means. Lama Alan introduces guru yoga and a self-empowerment visualisation with Padmasambhava, then leads a breathing practice in which we let go of identifying with sensations as mine, using a scratched phone and an injured knee as examples. The session ends with the three common preliminaries: precious human life, impermanence and suffering.

• Guided Meditation - This Precious Human Life David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded January 22, 2025

  David begins from Buddha nature, the clear mind said to be present in everyone and impossible to lose or damage, then works through how rarely the conditions to recognise it come together: a human birth at all, the time and the inclination to practise, teachers, books and people who support you. It ends in going for refuge and a resolve to use this life well.

• D2S1 - Verse One: The Precious Human Life David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded August 31, 2024

  Meditation posture comes first, then a Fourfold Vision Quest contemplation on what would bring lasting meaning and what to offer the world. David turns to the first verse, on making full use of a rare and precious human life, covering the eight freedoms, ten endowments and the three stages of study, reflection and meditation. Questions cover turning demanding work into practice and the story of tolerating harm from lice, which comes down to capacity, since faked patience is not practice.

• 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.

• 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.

• D1S1 - Four Revolutions in Outlook Lama Alan · 93 minutes · recorded January 1, 2022

  Lama Alan Wallace opens the retreat with Atisha, the Indian master behind the Seven-Point Mind Training, and the text's first point, train in the preliminaries. He recasts the four thoughts that turn the mind as four revolutions in outlook, a rare human life, death, suffering and the consequences of our actions, and asks whether you are hanging ornaments on the tree of your life or transplanting it. He then leads a twenty minute guided practice in which we settle body, speech and mind in their natural states.

• D1S1 - The Homage and the Foundations Lama Alan · 127 minutes · recorded January 1, 2021

  Lama Alan Wallace opens his commentary on Dudjom Rinpoche's five page manual, the first Dzogchen text Gyatrul Rinpoche taught him thirty one years ago. He works through the title and the homage to Dorje Drolo, and explains why resting in pristine awareness is the most ferocious response to the maras. Gyatrul Rinpoche's commentary supplies what the root text leaves out: the four revolutions in outlook, refuge and bodhicitta. It closes with a guided meditation on motivation.

• Empathetic Joy Glen Svensson · 78 minutes

  Empathetic joy, mudita, as the corrective to the modern obsessive focus on the negative. Glen Svensson turns cognitive fusion on ourselves to explain low self-esteem and the difference between useful regret and useless guilt, and advises praising a behaviour rather than a person. In the guided practice we rejoice in another's good fortune and virtues, then travel the timeline of our life recalling every kindness received. He closes with the four thoughts that turn the mind.

More by subject

• Anger and aversion 140
• Attachment and craving 116
• The nature of mind 92
• Emptiness 84
• The bodhisattva path 80
• Anxiety and fear 78
• Death and dying 76
• Distraction and attention 70
• Sleep and rest 66
• Buddhist psychology 59
• Illness and pain 57
• Karma 56
• Teacher and student 56
• Habits and change 50
• Genuine happiness and wellbeing 48
• Patience, forbearance and acceptance 46
• Relaxation 41
• Impermanence 40
• Gratitude and appreciation 38
• Tantra and Vajrayana 37
• Relationships and family 35
• Depression and low mood 32
• Dream yoga 32
• Motivation and intention 32
• Dreams and sleep 31
• Comparison and self-cherishing 27
• Guilt and regret 27
• Work and daily life 26
• Rebirth and continuity 25
• Self-criticism and shame 24
• Lineage and tradition 23
• The four noble truths 22
• Stress and burnout 21
• Buddha nature 20
• Ethics and precepts 20
• Emotional balance 19
• Forgiveness 17
• Generosity and dana 16
• Consciousness and science 15
• Sangha and community 14
• Enthusiastic effort (virya) 13
• Dependent origination 12
• Grief and loss 11
• Perception and projection 11
• Refuge 11
• The eight worldly concerns 10
• Attentional balance 8
• Not-self (anatta) 8
• The six perfections (paramitas) 8
• Ecology and the climate 7
• Nature and the outdoors 6
• Cognitive balance 5
• The eightfold path 5
• Peace and conflict 4
• The sixfold matrix of mental balance 4
• Secular mindfulness 3
• Symbolism and iconography 3
• Introspection and self-monitoring 1
• Spiritual materialism and bypassing 1
• The three marks of existence 1