Calendar

Mindfulness of breathing

Practice Library

Mindfulness of breathing

96 teachings in the library cover this practice.

  • D4S1 - Concentration, and Balancing Effort With Relaxation David Oromith · 86 minutes · recorded August 10, 2026

    The morning opens with mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils, with relaxation, stability and the counting. David turns to concentration, the fifth of the six perfections, and what gets in the way: excitation, the scattered mind, and laxity, the dullness that can feel like meditation. He talks about balancing effort with relaxation, and about mindfulness as the guard at the gate and introspection as the manager checking on it. In a second practice we attend to sight, sound and mind, then harvest joy.

  • Morning Yoga - 10 August 2026 Manu Oromith · 30 minutes · recorded August 10, 2026

    Manu opens with five rounds of box breathing, in, hold, out, hold, then seated twists and side reaches. Tabletop brings wrist circles and puppy pose before downward dog, and the class is built around cactus arms, the elbows bent and the shoulder blades squeezed together, taken into chair pose and repeated through each standing round. Three legged dog, a lunge with cactus arms and plank follow on both sides, with child's pose as the rest. It closes with happy baby and shavasana.

  • D3S1 - Patience and Acceptance, and the Spark and the Fuel David Oromith · 87 minutes · recorded August 9, 2026

    In the breathing practice we move up to the tips of the nostrils, the finest object so far, with clarity built on relaxation and stability rather than at their expense. David then talks about patience: the thing outside is the spark, but our own mind is the fuel, and much of the pain is the added belief that this should not be happening. The four aspects are acceptance, understanding, compassion and fortitude, and the session closes with a practice in which we bring a real difficulty to mind and meet it with each one.

  • D2S2 - Ethical Conduct, and Loving Kindness David Oromith · 73 minutes · recorded August 8, 2026

    In mindfulness of breathing we move to the sensations at the belly, with two extras to help focus, closer attention on the in breath and looseness on the out breath, plus counting one to seven. The teaching takes the second perfection, sila, ethical conduct, as the foundation for everything else, and it comes down to avoid harm and do good. Loving kindness follows, a mode of attending rather than an emotion, practised from yourself out to a loved one, a stranger, someone difficult and all beings.

  • D2S1 - Generosity, Contentment and Gratitude David Oromith · 86 minutes · recorded August 8, 2026

    The session opens with twenty minutes of mindfulness of breathing in which we release distractions with every out breath. David then begins the six perfections with the first, dana, generosity, which he describes as an attitude rather than always handing things over, and why expecting something back spoils it. He covers the three kinds of giving, material things, fearlessness and the teachings, then contentment and gratitude as antidotes to attachment. It closes with a practice called harvesting joy.

  • Evening Yoga - 7 August 2026 Manu Oromith · 34 minutes · recorded August 7, 2026

    Manu keeps this one horizontal after dinner. It opens seated with deep breaths and shoulder circles, then moves onto the back for knees dropping side to side, one leg at a time raised and flexed, and butterfly with the knees pressed towards the floor. Seated neck stretches and cat and cow follow, and the block goes lengthways between the shoulder blades for a long overhead stretch. It closes in shavasana with counted breathing, four in and four out.

  • D1S1 - Welcome, and Happiness as an Inside Job David Oromith · 47 minutes · recorded August 7, 2026

    David opens with the practical shape of the retreat and his encouragement not to busy yourself between sessions. He talks about the theme, habits of happy people, and why the happiness we really seek is an inside job rather than something the outside world delivers. He introduces the six perfections as what the sessions will work through. Meditation postures are described, then a practice on the breath that ends with your own motivation for being here.

  • Working with Moods David Oromith · 31 minutes · recorded April 12, 2026

    In twenty minutes of mindfulness of breathing we count the breath down from seven to steady a busy mind, followed by a short contemplation on what you would like to offer yourself and others today. David explains the difference between an emotion and a mood, why a mood lowers our threshold for reacting, and suggests quarantining ourselves through quiet and noble silence until a bad mood passes.

  • Guided Meditation - Meeting a Small Irritation David Oromith · 19 minutes · recorded January 28, 2026

    David asks you to bring to mind a small recent irritation, nothing traumatic, and to find where it lands in the body, a tightening or a heat you can name. When an urge to speak arises, you pause for one slow breath. He calls it heat and space: the feeling is real, and it is one part of a bigger field. Goodwill phrases close it.

  • Return, Renew and Begin Again David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded January 18, 2026

    In mindfulness of breathing we watch the rise and fall of each breath and give the wandering monkey mind a job to do. Returning after a long break, David talks about the balance between self reliance and community, and about beginning again, whatever has happened yesterday or this year, without expecting perfection of ourselves.

  • Guided Meditation - Befriending Anxiety David Oromith · 16 minutes · recorded November 24, 2025

    A low-level worry or grievance is invited to the surface, whatever shouts loudest, and located in the body as a felt sense, with the palm of the right hand over the chest to signify kindness. You then breathe space around the feeling with a deep in breath, neither suppressing nor indulging it, before warmth and compassion are brought in, supporting yourself as you would a friend. It closes with slow breathing, in for five and out for seven.

  • Session One - Three Kinds of Worry David Oromith · 69 minutes · recorded November 24, 2025

    The session opens with a guided meditation in which we reset body, speech and mind through mindfulness of breathing, and a second practice in which we watch thoughts arise and pass, labelling them without following them. David sets out three kinds of worry, appropriate, productive and toxic rumination, drawing on an account of the amygdala, then turns to the Buddhist view that anxiety is rooted in fear of impermanence and a wish for control we never really have. He closes on radical acceptance, distinguished from passivity.

  • 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.

  • Session One - What All of Us Want David Oromith · 95 minutes · recorded October 9, 2025

    The session opens with a guided meditation in which we settle body and mind, take refuge in the three jewels and arouse bodhicitta, before resting on mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils. David opens this three week series on his own text, Heart Advice from a Foolish Practitioner, telling how the verses came to him on retreat, then works through mindfulness, compassion, wisdom, ethics and patience. Questions cover why seeing yourself as lowest is not self-contempt, and how patience coexists with anger at real injustice.

  • Take a Step Back David Oromith · 35 minutes · recorded September 7, 2025

    In mindfulness of breathing we settle into the body and then notice whether each in-breath and out-breath runs long or short. David uses the parable of the blind men and the elephant to show how a narrow view distorts our reactions, from snapping at a late bus driver to a frozen computer, and how stepping back to see the wider web of causes lets us respond more calmly and realistically.

  • D7S1 - The Whole Sequence in One Session, and Carrying It Home David Oromith · 128 minutes · recorded August 25, 2025

    The closing session, and the longest of the week: the whole sequence run through in one unbroken practice, from the breath through the movements of the mind to awareness itself. David draws on a teaching Lama Alan and Eva Natanya gave in June on the four modes of mindfulness, and on why observing the mind and observing awareness can be understood as one practice. He ends on lojong, and on the person at work who need not cost you the patience you came here to build.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • D2S3 - The Buddha's Breathing Practice as a Source of Joy Lama Alan · 99 minutes · recorded June 12, 2025

    The Buddha's own instructions on mindfulness of breathing, moving from long and short breath to attending to the whole body, with Lama Alan's account of his own breath settling to around fifteen cycles a minute in retreat. He describes a quiet enjoyment of the practice itself, a source of wellbeing that costs nothing. The second and third foundation stones follow: reflecting on death, and what it means to stop clinging to this life alone.

  • D6S1 - The Final Stages of Shamatha and Its Signs of Arrival Lama Alan · 102 minutes · recorded June 5, 2025

    Mindfulness of breathing, settling the mind, and awareness of awareness are described as three nested practices, with mindfulness of breathing offered as the remedy for a stressful day and brief pauses through the day as seasoning. Lama Alan then details the eighth and ninth stages of shamatha and the signs of its arrival: heaviness at the crown, physical and mental pliancy, and waves of bliss, and how daily life and sleep change afterwards.

  • 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.

  • D2S2 - Sensations of the Breath and the Bodyguard of Shamatha Lama Alan · 98 minutes · recorded June 5, 2025

    Distinguishing the actual passage of air from the sensations it leaves at the nostrils, the final session on mindfulness of breathing covers how to stay with the target area through the pauses between breaths. Lama Alan tells the parable of the minister and his bodyguard to show why shamatha grounds vipassana, then answers questions on posture, including practising lying down for scoliosis or illness.

  • D1S3 - Three Breathing Methods and the Ground of Becoming Lama Alan · 167 minutes · recorded June 5, 2025

    Lama Alan teaches three ways of following the breath, each with its own guided practice: full body awareness from Asanga, abdomen breathing from the Burmese tradition, and the classic Theravada focus at the nostrils with counting. He distinguishes mindfulness from introspection, the faculty that catches laxity and excitation, and describes the ground of becoming, the substrate the mind dissolves into in sleep and at death, reachable through shamatha.

  • D1S2 - The Coal Burning Plant, and Genuine Unhappiness Lama Alan · 97 minutes · recorded June 5, 2025

    The image is a coal burning plant that must be switched off before solar panels can work: hedonic pursuits crowd out the genuine well-being meditation cultivates. Lama Alan applies the same logic to suffering, contrasting solitary confinement with a yogi's cave, same conditions but opposite minds. Questions range from fatigue and rest between sessions to a devotee told repeatedly it is even better to practise Dharma, ending with the value of retreat.

  • D1S1 - Motivation, Hedonic Pleasure and Settling the Mind Lama Alan · 90 minutes · recorded June 4, 2025

    Why we practice, before what we practice: Lama Alan distinguishes hedonic pleasure, which depends on circumstance, from genuine well-being that grows from within, and tells why the Buddha left a secure life in search of a path. He introduces the terms samadhi, shamatha and vikalpa, the obsessive, compulsive flow of thought meditation is meant to settle, closing with a guided practice of settling body, speech and mind in their natural state.

  • Comparison is the Thief of Joy David Oromith · 33 minutes · recorded May 11, 2025

    A meditation on mindfulness of breathing, following the Buddha's instructions to know whether each breath is long or short, then to experience the whole body and let it settle and calm. David turns to the saying that comparison is the thief of joy, and shows how both feeling superior and feeling inadequate trap us in the same self-focus, built on partial pictures we mistake for the whole. He offers mudita, empathetic joy in another's happiness, as the way to turn comparison into celebration.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Buddha's Message David Oromith · 31 minutes · recorded January 19, 2025

    The session opens with a mindfulness of breathing meditation, in which we rest attention on the whole body as it breathes, with a gentle count from one to seven to hold it when the mind wanders. David revisits the Buddha's simplest teaching, that he taught suffering and the end of suffering, and walks through avoiding harm, doing good and purifying the mind as the path out of it. He asks whether modern comfort has made us happier, and says lasting well-being comes from working with the mind, not fixing circumstances.

  • 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.

  • D6S4 - One Useful Word and a Vision for the Sangha David Oromith · 43 minutes · recorded November 27, 2024

    The retreat closes with a final guided meditation on mindfulness of breathing. David reflects on the Buddha's saying that one useful word outweighs a thousand useless ones, and shares his hope that the teachings help people become insiders pursuing happiness without harming others or the planet. He also describes his aspiration to build an eco-retreat centre in Wales. The session ends with the group's thanks and closing offerings.

  • Session 3 - Mindfulness of the Mind David Oromith · 85 minutes · recorded November 20, 2024

    In the guided meditation on mindfulness of mind, eyes open in space, we count the breath before watching thoughts, memories and emotions arise, abide and dissolve without following or suppressing them. David contrasts passive witnessing in shamatha with discerningly recognising a lustful, hating or deluded mind here, using the Buddha's water and fire imagery for non-grasping. Questions cover guilt at doing nothing, locating anxiety in the body, and inquiry disturbing what it observes.

  • 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.

  • S3 - Taking the Mind as the Path David Oromith · 86 minutes · recorded October 29, 2024

    The releasing approach to shamatha, practised with the eyes open. David guides what Lama Alan Wallace calls the Dzogchen approach to mindfulness of breathing, resting in awareness itself with the rhythm of the breath only at the periphery. He gives the four benefits the Buddha named for this concentration, and the story of the monkeys raiding a retreat room in Nepal. The Vajra Essence's advice for those who cannot calm their thoughts leads into observing them without identifying or grasping.

  • 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.

  • Spiritual Rebellion: Mindfulness with Attitude Ondy Willson · 117 minutes · recorded September 28, 2024

    Ondy Willson introduces her book and the work behind it: the influences of Buddhism, of her own life, and of twenty years teaching mindfulness in the public and private sectors. She sets out the key ideas of a spiritual practice, and how they can give contemporary life meaning and purpose without requiring a religion. With a reading, a meditation, and questions.

  • 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.

  • Aversion and Patient-Acceptance David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded May 7, 2024

    The evening opens with ten minutes counting the breath and extending loving-kindness. David returns to the Dalai Lama's Beyond Religion to show attachment and aversion turn destructive only when out of proportion, then sets out patient acceptance through acceptance, understanding, compassion and fortitude, using the spark and fuel image and the two arrows. Questions cover a job left out of aversion, indifference as a near enemy of equanimity, and looking after oneself.

  • Harvesting Negativity from Daily Life David Oromith · 26 minutes · recorded May 5, 2024

    Mindfulness of breathing at the belly, with counting offered as a way to keep continuity of attention when the mind wanders or grows dull. David tells the parable of two neighbours gathering produce, one filling his basket with rot and complaint, the other with what nourishes, to talk about what we choose to attend to and bring home each day. He points to our natural negativity bias and encourages noticing the ordinary good, without pretending difficulty away.

  • Good? Bad? Who Knows? David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded April 21, 2024

    In the subtle mindfulness of breathing practice we track the sensation of air at the nostrils and sharpen attention with each in breath while relaxing further with each out breath. David shares the story of the king, his amputated finger and the doctor's shrugging reply, using it to question how quickly we label events as good or bad before we know how they will unfold. He reflects on setbacks from his own life, including his depression, that later turned out to serve him.

  • How Caring for Others Enhances Wellbeing David Oromith · 32 minutes · recorded April 7, 2024

    A classic mindfulness of breathing practice at the belly, with counting offered as an aid to sustained attention. David reflects on Shantideva's teaching that self-centredness is the root of misery and care for others the root of joy, illustrated with the parking space and the borrowed thirty pounds, where the outcome is identical but the experience of giving feels entirely different from the experience of loss. He connects this to the natural human need for community and connection.

  • A Helpful Alternative to Guilt & Shame David Oromith · 32 minutes · recorded February 25, 2024

    Mindfulness of breathing at the belly, practised with eyes at least partially open, with counting available for those who find it helpful. David addresses guilt from a Buddhist perspective, distinguishing it from healthy regret and describing how guilt fuses a harmful action with a sense of being a bad person. He sets out the four opponent powers of regret, reliance, remedy and resolve as a more workable response, alongside the Dalai Lama's answer to a question about self hatred.

  • 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.

  • 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 - 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Exploring Attachment: a Dharma Cafe David Oromith · 36 minutes · recorded November 15, 2023

    Attachment, and why the mind soon tires of whatever it wanted. David tells Ajahn Brahm's story of the nun whose patched robe led to a cat, a cow, a field and a boy, and asks what her real problem actually was. He talks about the attachment loop, and asks what our own behaviour says we believe rather than what we know. This first Dharma Cafe opens with twenty four minutes of guided practice, mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils with counting from one to seven, and open discussion follows.

  • The Noble Eightfold Path: Samadhi - Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration David Oromith · 75 minutes · recorded November 14, 2023

    The session opens with ten to fifteen minutes of guided mindfulness of breathing to settle body and mind, before David turns to the second division of the path: right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. He works through the four strivings and the Buddha's image of a lute string tuned neither too tight nor too loose, then explains mindfulness as holding an object in mind, and describes samadhi and the obscurations that block it. Questions cover what to do when tiredness or stress makes practice hard.

  • 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.

  • Taking Our Practice One Step at a Time David Oromith · 30 minutes · recorded November 12, 2023

    The session opens with a short mindfulness of breathing to settle the mind, before David guides a visualisation of a glowing white orb at the heart centre, inviting you to meditate from that point of clarity. He talks about pacing our practice one day at a time rather than trying to accumulate everything at once, using the Buddha's image of the water pot filled drop by drop and the tortoise who beats the flitting hummingbird. He suggests a varied practice of concentration, loving kindness and small daily mindfulness.

  • The Noble Eightfold Path: Sīla - Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood David Oromith · 77 minutes · recorded November 7, 2023

    The session opens with ten minutes of mindfulness of breathing, with refuge and bodhicitta motivation, and closes with a shorter practice. David works through sila from the Pali suttas: right speech and its five gates of truth, timing, affection, benefit and goodwill, right action on killing, stealing and sexual misconduct, and right livelihood's forbidden trades and a balanced income. Questions cover lying to protect a friend from hurt, and working somewhere that sells meat or alcohol.

  • 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.

  • The Four Noble Truths: The Cessation and the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering David Oromith · 84 minutes · recorded October 24, 2023

    The evening opens with ten minutes of mindfulness of breathing, and refuge and bodhicitta motivation before the teaching. David covers the third and fourth noble truths: cessation as extinguishing ignorance, attachment and aversion, using the sky and clouds to show why afflictions are temporary while peace and compassion are not, then the path via the Lam Rim's three scopes and the eightfold path's ethics, concentration and wisdom. A question asks the difference between nirvana and enlightenment.

  • D1S3 - Stillness, Silence and Spaciousness Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 61 minutes · recorded August 25, 2023

    Two shamatha practices to make loving kindness possible. The first settles the body in relaxation, stillness and vigilance, and closes with a reverse body scan. Between them Michael Lobsang Tenpa passes on Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's three pillars, stillness for the body, silence for the speech, spaciousness for the mind. The second is mindfulness of breathing, attended to as tactile waves moving through the whole body.

  • 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.

  • The Six Paramitas - Patient Acceptance David Oromith · 26 minutes · recorded January 22, 2023

    After counting the breath to settle the mind, you bring to mind a scenario that regularly frustrates you and meet it with understanding, acceptance and fortitude rather than resistance. David talks about the third paramita, patient acceptance, defining it simply as accepting whatever arises, having given up the idea that it should be otherwise. Using the example of being stuck in traffic, he explains why resisting what cannot be changed only compounds the suffering.

  • S2 - Attachment and Aversion, and the Spark and the Fuel David Oromith · 73 minutes · recorded January 19, 2023

    The evening opens with a short guided meditation in which we settle into the body and breath. David then explains attachment and aversion as habits of mind that exaggerate things, using the spark, fuel and flame image and the story of the nun who ends up with a cow to show how solving one craving creates another. A second guided practice follows, mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen with counting. Questions cover expectation, frustration with practice, and whether to let thoughts go or work with them.

  • Guided Meditation - Cultivating Generosity David Oromith · 21 minutes · recorded January 15, 2023

    You sharpen the mind with twenty one rounds of breath, three lots of seven, and then its creativity is put to work. David asks for a picture of a typical day, where you go, the shops or errands, the people you meet, and for generosity imagined into it: something material, your time, your expertise, a kind word. Their response is imagined too, and the warmth of giving with nothing wanted back. It closes on an intention to carry that into ordinary days.

  • Guided Meditation - Meeting a Difficulty with Inner Strength David Oromith · 22 minutes · recorded June 19, 2022

    Stillness of the body, the gaze and awareness, held until the rhythmic sensations of breathing rise up to meet you, with a count at each exhale if engagement slips. A current difficulty is invited in: I want it to be different, but this is the way it is right now. David points out a hundred per cent success rate at getting through every challenge so far, calls it a superhero mindset, and has you sit a little taller.

  • D1S2 - Attentional Intelligence, and Let the Mystery Be Revealed Lama Alan · 82 minutes · recorded January 1, 2022

    Atisha's aphorism, once stability is achieved let the mystery be revealed, and why shamatha comes before the cultivation of ultimate bodhicitta. Lama Alan Wallace sets out conation, ethical intelligence and attentional intelligence in turn, and pictures our modern mind as a telescope mounted on a galloping camel in a sandstorm. The guided practice is mindfulness of breathing, felt throughout the whole body, and we note whether each breath is long or short, with introspection watching the attention.

  • Being Ok With Being Uncomfortable David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded October 24, 2021

    The body settles into contact with the ground before we rest attention on the changing sensations of each in breath and out breath, with counting offered for those who want to steady their focus. David talks about being comfortable with being uncomfortable, welcoming each moment instead of insisting it be different, and recognising that difficult feelings are fleeting and survivable. He also warns against letting meditation become another stick to beat ourselves with when we still feel low.

  • The True Meaning of Non-Attachment and How It Sets You Free David Oromith · 53 minutes · recorded September 26, 2021

    David starts by saying what non-attachment is not: coldness, indifference, giving up relationships or pleasure, pointing to the Dalai Lama's own tears and laughter as evidence. He shows how attachment adds projection and expectation onto people and things, illustrated by a monitor smashed in the wind, causing disappointment the world did not create. The talk closes with a guided mindfulness of breathing in which we contemplate where attachment shows up in life. Questions cover forgiveness and boundaries.

  • The Good Nun and the Patchy Robe David Oromith · 30 minutes · recorded June 6, 2021

    In mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils we keep the eyes soft rather than straining to visualise the breath, with counting to seven offered as a steadying aid. David tells the story of a nun who patches her robe, then acquires a cat, then a cow, then a field and an attendant to solve each new problem the last solution created. He draws out how chasing outer fixes for an inner dissatisfaction only breeds more problems, until she recognises this and returns to her simple life.

  • Guided Meditation - Heartful Presence with Neil Seligman David Oromith · 14 minutes · recorded April 7, 2021

    This is a guided meditation on Heartful Presence with Neil Seligman. This practice helps you tune into the body with loving awareness and notice what is arising in your awareness. In this practice, we explore the energy of the heart through deep listening, focusing on body sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts.

  • Guided Meditation - Anāpānasati David Oromith · 15 minutes · recorded April 22, 2020

    This is a short 15-minute guided anāpānasati practice. Simply meaning 'mindfulness of breathing,' anāpānasati was the meditation practice most widely emphasized by the Buddha. It is a practice in which mindful breathing is used to develop samadhi (concentration) and achieve the state of shamatha (calm abiding) and is especially suited for those who are prone to rumination and overthinking. The Buddha said 'Concentration by mindfulness of breathing, when developed and cultivated, is peaceful, sublime, an ambrosial dwelling, and it disperses and quells on the spot unwholesome states whenever they arise.'

  • 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.

  • D2S3 - Mental Afflictions, and Whether You Need a Guru Lama Alan · Eva Natanya · 92 minutes · recorded January 1, 2020

    In the vipashyana practice on the mind itself we count the breath to ten, then watch what disturbs the mind's equilibrium, asking whether any mental event is stable, satisfying or yours. Answering questions afterwards, Lama Alan repeats the Dalai Lama's answer on needing a guru: no, but it can save you a lot of time. Eva Natanya adds Gregory of Sinai's warning against practising without a spiritual father. Grief at a child's death, Lama Alan says, is a symptom and not a mental affliction.

  • D1S3 - Mindfulness of Breathing, East and West Lama Alan · Eva Natanya · 95 minutes · recorded January 1, 2020

    Lama Alan Wallace separates hedonia, the pleasure we get from the world, from eudaimonia. He guides a mindfulness of breathing practice built on the Buddha's potter's wheel analogy, noting only whether each breath is long or short. The in breath arouses the attention and the out breath relaxes it. Eva Natanya then finds the parallel practice in the Hesychast fathers, and answers St Gregory Palamas's instruction to restrain the breath with St Gregory of Sinai: press the lips gently together, never impede the nasal breathing.

  • D1S2 - I Am Who I Am, and the Hesychast Life Lama Alan · Eva Natanya · 122 minutes · recorded January 1, 2020

    Eva Natanya opens the Christian side of the dialogue with the question of being in the west and of consciousness in the east, then Moses at the burning bush and a name that was not the answer to a philosophical question. She sets out the apophatic and cataphatic ways of speaking about God, and introduces hesychasm, the life of stillness, silence and solitude. The practice is mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils, and we open into wonder that anything arises at all. Lama Alan presses her on obedience to a spiritual father who has gone astray.

  • D5S5 - Prospective Mindfulness, and Questions on Karma and Free Will Lama Alan · 87 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019

    The session opens with a silent period, with a choice of methods and two combinations Lama Alan Wallace likes, earth and wind and earth and sky, mindfulness of breathing leading into settling the mind or into awareness of awareness. He reviews prospective mindfulness: resolving to notice an anomaly or a dream sign and do a state check, and catching the moment of waking so the dream can be re-entered. Questions follow on free will, whether an android could be conscious, and whether watching an affliction arise accrues karma.

  • 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.

  • D3S1 - Free Will, and the Three Qualities of a Student Lama Alan · 107 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019

    In a detailed preamble Lama Alan Wallace argues that the dispute over free will is the wrong question, and offers Shantideva's counsel to remain like a piece of wood when the mind comes under a mental affliction. The practice that follows is a fourth approach to mindfulness of breathing, from the Dzogchen side: we rest awareness in its own place, knowing itself while the breath is noticed peripherally. He names the three qualities that make a suitable vessel: open-minded, perceptive, eager to practise.

  • 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.

  • D2S4 - Unhappiness From Within, and the Ambrosial Dwelling Lama Alan · 83 minutes

    Genuine unhappiness, with no external referent, comes from the mind you brought into that room, Tsongkhapa's observation set beside a friend who called nine months of solitude a river of gold. Mindfulness of breathing is the one method the Buddha recommends for minds chronically caught up in rumination, and his account of where it leads runs peaceful, sublime, ambrosial, with arisen afflictions getting no footing. A guided practice follows, and he closes on the research centre being built in Tuscany.

  • 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.

  • 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.

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