Practice Library

Not-self (anatta)

10 teachings in the library are about this.

• Week Two - Status & Insignificance David Oromith · 87 minutes · recorded September 29, 2026

  The hope for status and the fear of insignificance, and how they show up at work, among friends, online and in Dharma communities. David explains why self-esteem built on other people's opinions is fragile, and why hope and fear lose their grip once we see the ego self as a character in a video game. In the guided contemplation we recall a time we felt important and a time we felt overlooked, and look at the impermanence of each. A closing question: noticing this in others without lecturing.

• D4S2 - Wisdom, and What We Take Home David Oromith · 60 minutes · recorded August 10, 2026

  The session opens with a short practice in which we breathe in gratitude and compassion and breathe out anxieties and doubts. David turns to the last of the six perfections, wisdom, and to ignorance, the not knowing underneath attachment and aversion. He talks about impermanence, about the causes of happiness being inside rather than out there, and about holding the labels we put on ourselves more lightly. A longer practice of 21 breaths follows, in which we bring appreciation to body, home and relationships.

• Guided Meditation - Looking for the Inherently Existing I David Oromith · 22 minutes · recorded June 11, 2024

  The sense of I is picked out first: not the hands and not the thoughts, but the one who feels happy when praised and offended when insulted, central, fixed, standing apart. If it exists it should be findable, so the body is checked part by part, arm, leg, head, then the whole, then the mind, thought, feeling, memory, all of it changing. What turns up is only parts, causes and labels. It closes resting in whatever calm comes of that.

• Guided Meditation - Open Presence, Approached Through the Buddha's Words to Bahiya Lama Alan · 25 minutes

  Lama Alan Wallace leads you through the Buddha's instruction to Bahiya, taking first the visual field, then sounds, then tactile sensations, then the movements of the mind, and in each one letting the seen be just the seen. You observe appearances arising in space with no outside, no inside and no owner. Like a bale of hay whose cord is cut, your awareness then unravels in all directions into open presence, sustained in silence.

• Guided Meditation - Loving Kindness for a Loved One, Asking What They Long For Lama Alan · 25 minutes

  Lama Alan asks you to bring to mind one person you hold dear and to attend closely to what they long for: what obstructs their happiness, and how they picture it. With each out breath you send the breath of loving kindness, wishing them free of every encumbrance and imagining them realising their heart's desire. The session then closes resting within the field of your own body, present to sensation without grasping.

• Guided Meditation - Open Awareness of the Six Senses, Noting Patterns of Causality Lama Alan · 22 minutes

  You open your awareness to all six sense fields and rest there without distraction or grasping. Rather than simply noting what arises, Lama Alan invites a wider view, watching how one appearance gives rise to another, a thought to an emotion, a sensation to a thought. There is no mechanism to find, only patterns of dependence. You let the will stay passive, taking no ownership, and the session continues in silence.

• Guided Meditation - Mindfulness of Feeling Tone Across the Five Senses Lama Alan · 23 minutes

  Lama Alan opens your awareness to the five physical senses, sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, resting in bare attention with the mental domain set aside. The practice then moves to the second application of mindfulness: not the sensations but the feeling tone that comes with them, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. When an urge to move arises you stay still and study the discomfort behind it. You end by asking whether these feelings are in any way yours.

• Guided Meditation - The Three Marks of Existence, from Recollection to Direct Inquiry Lama Alan · 13 minutes

  Lama Alan begins with a review of your own past: times you held something fleeting as though it were durable, took a person or place to be the true source of your happiness, or grasped what is not yours as I and mine. You then turn to the space of the mind and put the same three questions to experience. Is anything here unchanging? Is any appearance a real well of happiness or suffering? Does anything carry the mark of I?

• Guided Meditation - Vipashyana, Searching the Mind for Shape, Size and Location Lama Alan · 24 minutes

  With the body settled and your eyes partly open, Lama Alan asks you to place your mind in the space before you, then look for whatever it was you placed. Is there a single entity that thinks, remembers and perceives? Is it the same from moment to moment? The inquiry narrows to one question: if the mind exists it must have characteristics, so does it have shape, size or location? It ends with you still searching, in silence.

• Guided Meditation - Vipashyana, Searching for the Mind That Observes Lama Alan · 24 minutes

  Lama Alan turns awareness back on itself and asks what the mind actually is. Having directed attention to the space of the body, you invert it and inspect whatever was doing the directing. Does the mind have a shape, a size, a colour, a location? Set it in motion when it is too still to see. You watch states of mind arise and dissolve, and close on the question: who or what are you?

More by subject

• Anger and aversion 143
• Attachment and craving 123
• The nature of mind 93
• Emptiness 84
• The bodhisattva path 81
• Anxiety and fear 79
• Death and dying 77
• Distraction and attention 73
• Sleep and rest 66
• Buddhist psychology 59
• Illness and pain 57
• Karma 57
• Teacher and student 56
• Habits and change 53
• Genuine happiness and wellbeing 52
• Patience, forbearance and acceptance 50
• Impermanence 46
• Relaxation 43
• Gratitude and appreciation 42
• Relationships and family 38
• Motivation and intention 37
• Tantra and Vajrayana 37
• Depression and low mood 32
• Dream yoga 32
• Comparison and self-cherishing 31
• Dreams and sleep 31
• Guilt and regret 28
• Self-criticism and shame 28
• Work and daily life 28
• Rebirth and continuity 26
• Lineage and tradition 23
• Buddha nature 22
• The four noble truths 22
• Ethics and precepts 21
• Stress and burnout 21
• Emotional balance 19
• Generosity and dana 18
• Forgiveness 17
• Consciousness and science 15
• The six perfections (paramitas) 15
• Enthusiastic effort (virya) 14
• Sangha and community 14
• The eight worldly concerns 14
• The four thoughts that turn the mind 14
• Grief and loss 13
• Perception and projection 13
• Dependent origination 12
• Refuge 11
• Attentional balance 9
• Ecology and the climate 7
• Cognitive balance 6
• Nature and the outdoors 6
• The eightfold path 5
• Peace and conflict 4
• The sixfold matrix of mental balance 4
• Introspection and self-monitoring 3
• Secular mindfulness 3
• Self-compassion 3
• Symbolism and iconography 3
• Spiritual materialism and bypassing 1
• The three marks of existence 1