Relationships and family

38 teachings in the library are about this.

D3S3 - Questions on Perfectionism, Judgement and Grief David Oromith · 57 minutes · recorded August 9, 2026
A few minutes of stillness and the breath open the evening, then David works through the questions. He covers how to reconcile a powerful psychedelic experience with practice, why a glimpse of something profound fades without stability of mind, perfectionism and judgement, and what happens when we keep offering love and get none back. Later ones cover limiting how much world news we take in, the RAIN tool for waves of grief, and encouraging a partner by our own example.
D2S3 - Questions, and Whether Our Habits Really Change David Oromith · 59 minutes · recorded August 8, 2026
The evening opens with a few minutes of settling in the body and the breath, then David works through questions from the room and from online. He talks about whether effort really does change our habits day by day, and about phrases like "so what, who cares, no big deal" and "it happens" for small irritations. Later ones cover sounds that pull the attention away, grief after a family death, feeling unworthy of receiving generosity, and where giving to our own detriment starts.
Session Two - From Need to Care, and the Open Palm David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded July 18, 2026
David shifts the basis of a relationship from need to care, then reads Thich Nhat Hanh on loving in such a way that the person you love feels free. Contentment and gratitude come in as the medicine for attachment, and equanimity as the open palm rather than the fist closed around a songbird that has landed in it. David then guides a practice in which we turn towards the fear of things changing with reassurance rather than argument, and wish a loved one free. It closes on the group's own reflections.
Session One - What Attachment Is, and Where It Hides David Oromith · 72 minutes · recorded July 18, 2026
David separates attachment from genuine love, quoting Venerable Robina Courtin that attachment is I-based and love other-based, and that the two are stirred together like milk and water. He traces it to the feeling of not being enough: in being liked, in being right, and in the roles we hold on to, his own being the tech person on the ward until others arrived who could do it too. In the guided practice we set the two side by side for a loved one and a friend. It closes on the fear of abandonment underneath.
That was the River, This is the Sea David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded February 15, 2026
In the gratitude meditation we move through the body, the home, our relationships and the natural world. David reflects on a Waterboys lyric, that was the river, this is the sea, and uses the image of a water slide to talk about letting go of an old version of yourself and accepting the life a difficult period has carried you into.
Attachment & Love in Relationships David Oromith · 34 minutes · recorded January 25, 2026
In the open awareness practice we move through the body, sound and the mind, meeting each with acceptance rather than resistance. David talks about the difference between Buddhist love and attachment, describing the sentimentality that sees a partner or friend as perfect and the possessiveness that needs to control them, and how genuine love wants their happiness regardless.
Sitting with Emotion David Oromith · 33 minutes · recorded October 26, 2025
In the meditation we turn towards recent difficult emotions and moods, meeting them with a loving, non-judgmental presence rather than trying to fix them. Inspired by Sogyal Rinpoche's handshake practice, David talks about why suppressing feelings causes physical and emotional strain, and connects this to the recognise, allow, investigate and nurture of RAIN practice.
S3 - Teachers, Etiquette, and Devotion with Discernment David Oromith · 92 minutes · recorded September 17, 2025
In the guided meditation we visualise the Buddha as indivisible from our own teacher, going for refuge and arousing bodhicitta before the talk begins. David covers etiquette in a dharma hall, the three types of unreceptive vessel, and how to address a teacher by title. He explains the three levels of viewing a teacher, from emissary to embodiment of Buddha nature, and warns devotion must stay discerning rather than treating every action as perfect. A question compares Tibetan and Zen shrines.
D5S3 - Empathetic Joy, and Delighting in the Good Fortune of Others David Oromith · 91 minutes · recorded August 22, 2025
The third immeasurable, and the most uplifting: being happy with someone rather than only for them, on the understanding that joy is not locked inside one person. David says this one comes to life out in the world, and tells of a low, isolated spell when he could not face going outside but could watch kids playing and a dog running after a ball from his window, and feel delight instead of the miserly mind asking why he did not have that. Questions afterwards on giving within our means, and on sustaining motivation when shamatha is not all or nothing.
D5S1 - Taking the Mind as the Path: Watching Thought Without Following It David Oromith · 88 minutes · recorded August 22, 2025
We turn attention from the body to the mind itself: thoughts, images, memories and desires observed as they arise, play out and pass, without following any of them anywhere. David speaks personally about how this meditation helped with his own anxiety, because it totally changed his relationship with those anxious thoughts: the only power they have over you is the power you give them. He also warns of the version that only looks empty, where you are filling the space by talking your way through it.
D3S3 - Loving Kindness Through the Classic Sequence, and Its Near Enemy David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded August 20, 2025
Loving kindness outwards now, through the classic sequence of loved one, neutral person and difficult person, and on to all beings. Quoting Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, loving kindness says I love you, therefore I want you to be happy, while attachment, its near enemy, says I love you because you make me happy. It may look like love and act like love, but there are strings attached. Questions afterwards cover hypnagogic imagery mistaken for meditative experience, and how to learn to practise without guidance.
D4S1 - Two Paths to Practice, and How Appearances Deceive Lama Alan · 116 minutes · recorded June 5, 2025
Lama Alan contrasts the monastic route of cutting all ties with staying in the world, married or with children, and explains how to weed attachment out of a relationship while keeping the love that comes with it. He turns to why appearances of colour and self are always misleading, since nothing exists in the solid way it seems to, and answers those who say shamatha is no longer achievable by pointing to the Dalai Lama's own encouragement to practise it.
Ecological Distress, Awe, and Emotional Wellbeing (Dr Eve Ekman) Eve Ekman · 113 minutes · recorded April 1, 2025
Dr Eve Ekman on the relationship between our emotions and the state of the natural world, from environmental anxiety to what nature gives back.
Session 2 - Exploring Bodhicitta David Oromith · 80 minutes · recorded February 1, 2025
A guided practice weaves the four immeasurables, loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity, extended in turn to oneself, a loved one, a stranger and an enemy. David explains how these four give rise to great compassion and then bodhicitta, and reads passages from the Dalai Lama on its benefits for health, relationships and facing an enemy without anger. Questions cover holding all beings in mind by caring for everyone we actually meet. A short closing meditation follows.
Guided Meditation - Recognising the Kindness of All Beings David Oromith · 23 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
Beginning again from the recognition that every being has been your mother, we go through the kindness itself: the nine painstaking months carried, the night feeds, the bathing, the silly faces made just to raise a smile, the hands held through first steps, the words repeated until you could form them. Each stage is extended to all beings across countless lives. It closes on this life, and on the food, clothing and home that come from others' work.
D5S2 - The Emptiness of Self and the Nature of Awareness David Oromith · 84 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
David guides a practice of watching thoughts arise and dissolve without following them, a step toward resting in awareness itself. He turns to absolute bodhicitta, using a plant pot and an empty bank balance to show how self and things are labels placed over shifting causes and conditions rather than solid entities. Questions cover rebirth, relationships, and resting in pristine awareness.
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.
Guided Meditation - Loving Kindness, Widening the Circle David Oromith · 19 minutes · recorded September 17, 2024
Loving kindness widened one person at a time: yourself, someone whose life you admire, a close friend, then someone you feel nothing about either way, and finally a person who wishes you harm. With that last one David asks you to cut through the hardened image to the real person who wants happiness as you do. It closes with the Metta Sutta and a dedication.
Session 1 - Loving-Kindness (part one) David Oromith · 91 minutes · recorded September 11, 2024
David guides a loving-kindness meditation directed entirely at oneself: recalling a kind action, naming a quality worth admiring, then arousing the wish to be at ease, well and happy, and joyful. He explains why metta is a yearning rather than an emotion, and traces its near enemy, self-centred attachment, and its far enemy, malice, reading from the Metta Sutta. Several members speak openly about how hard they found turning kindness towards themselves.
Exploring Attachment David Oromith · 72 minutes · recorded April 9, 2024
A short settling meditation on the breath with refuge and bodhicitta, before David defines attachment: how it exaggerates an object's appeal, filters out its downsides and grasps to acquire or keep it. He traces its reach into possessions, appearance and relationships, and tells the story of the nun and the cat, showing how one small wish can spiral into an elaborate life. Discussion covers attachment versus need, jealousy and grief, including whether loving someone means being attached to them.
D4S2 - Loving Kindness for a Friend Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 60 minutes · recorded January 5, 2024
The step to someone close, a partner, a sibling, a best friend, where the practice gets harder. Michael Lobsang Tenpa shows how the wish quietly turns conditional, may you be happy but only with me, and asks people to hold that person's flourishing steady even with themselves removed from the picture. He is clear that this does not mean tolerating harmful behaviour, and that healthy boundaries and loving kindness belong together.
D3S5 - Why the Benefactor Comes First Michael Lobsang Tenpa · 61 minutes · recorded January 5, 2024
Questions, at length. Michael Lobsang Tenpa explains why the loving kindness others radiate barely reaches us, using the image of a bowl turned upside down under the sun, and what happiness might mean for a bird. He says why the benefactor is chosen before a friend, because nothing is expected in return, and why Buddhaghosa requires an object who is alive to reach shamatha through loving kindness. The closing practice is framed by the three excellences, and the dedication carries Shantideva's verse.
Turning Everyday Life into Dharma Practice David Oromith · 53 minutes · recorded November 6, 2023
No formal meditation until the close, a ten minute practice in which we harvest joy through the five senses and gratitude for this life. The talk is on turning everyday life into practice: difficult people become opportunities for patience and compassion, chores are done with mindful awareness rather than boredom, and pleasant experience is enjoyed with gratitude rather than craving more. Listeners share their own struggles, including a difficult mother and mindful eating with the television on.
Harvesting Joy and Simplifying Life David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded October 22, 2023
A meditation called Harvesting Joy, in which we cycle through the five senses to notice small, ordinary delights in touch, sight, sound, smell and taste. David explains that this is not hedonism: it helps us appreciate what we already have rather than always craving something bigger or better, which is how attachment tends to work. He talks about simplifying daily life, cutting back on extra stimulation, so the mental space it frees can go towards relationships and practice instead.
Week 1: Loving-kindness (Metta): Cultivating an open heart and goodwill towards all beings David Oromith · 75 minutes · recorded June 9, 2023
The evening opens with a short settling meditation, followed later by a full loving-kindness practice in which we move from self to a loved one, a neutral person and someone difficult, closing with the Buddha's words on boundless love. David explains metta as a wish rather than a feeling, and names its near enemy, self-centred attachment, and its far enemy, ill will, using the image of a mosaic buried under concrete. Sarah describes how a small act of kindness turned round a strained work relationship.
Reflecting On Our Impermanence David Oromith · 27 minutes · recorded April 16, 2023
The session opens with a short breathing meditation to settle the body, before we turn attention to how even the most solid seeming sensations are constantly changing. Prompted by the recent deaths of two teachers in his lineage, David talks about why Buddhist practice deliberately contemplates impermanence and our own death, not to bring on despair but to clarify what actually matters: valuing the relationships and time we have rather than getting lost in old arguments or in worry about the future.
The Six Paramitas - Protecting Our Practice (Ethical Discipline) David Oromith · 28 minutes · recorded January 29, 2023
In this mahamudra style meditation we visualise the mind as a clear sky and each thought or emotion as a cloud passing through it, observed rather than followed. David turns to the second paramita, ethical discipline, describing it not as rules imposed from outside but as a fence protecting a young seedling, a fledgling practice easily undone by an outburst of anger the moment we step off the cushion. He talks about how avoiding harm builds the trust that relationships and genuine wellbeing rest on.
Guided Meditation - Compassion (karuṇā) David Oromith · 24 minutes · recorded December 5, 2022
This is a guided meditation on Compassion (karuṇā in Sanskrit). Compassion is one of the Four Immeasurables, a rich compilation of practices that open the heart, counter the distortions in our relationships with ourselves and deepens our relationship with others. The essential nature of compassion is a yearning for the person we are directing our attention to be free of suffering. The object of one's compassion may be oneself, another human being, an animal, or any other sentient being.
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.
Guided Meditation on Maitrī (Loving-Kindness) David Oromith · 18 minutes · recorded June 19, 2020
This is a guided meditation on Loving-Kindness (maitrī in Sanskrit). Loving Kindness is the first of the Four Immeasurables, a rich compilation of practices that open the heart, counter the distortions in our relationships with ourselves and deepens our relationship with others. The essential nature of loving-kindness is a yearning that the person we are directing our attention to be well and happy. The object of one's loving-kindness may be oneself, another human being, an animal, or any other sentient being. May everyone be free of enmity. May everyone be free of affliction. May everyone be free of anxiety. May everyone be well and happy.
The Key to Happy, Healthy & Loving Relationships David Oromith · 15 minutes · recorded June 17, 2020
In this episode, David talks about love and attachment, and the key to happy, healthy and loving relationships from a Buddhist perspective. For a lot of us, if someone was to ask us "what would make your relationship with your partner better?" our answer would be something that our partner should do differently. It may even be a whole list that we have prepared. But as we venture on the path of meditation and self-inquiry, we realise that, as with everything, our relationships are subjective and the happiness, joy and love we seek must come from within. By bringing love and joy to the world and avoiding the extremes of aversion and craving, we can have happy, healthy and loving relationships with everyone we meet.
D2S3 - Awareness of Awareness, Dying Lucidly, and Loving Kindness Lama Alan · 85 minutes · recorded January 1, 2019
Nothing could persuade you that you are not conscious, and Lama Alan takes that as his starting point. He describes the substrate consciousness, then guides awareness of awareness, released into space on the out-breath and inverted upon itself on the in-breath. What the dying process holds for anyone who stays lucid follows. The session closes with loving kindness, an aspiration rather than an emotion, with the near enemy Buddhaghosa names in the Path of Purification, self-centred attachment.
When People Turn Against Us Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo · 16 minutes · recorded January 1, 2016
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo explains Atisha's Lojong line on how we respond when people we have been kind to turn against us. She says these texts were written by honoured lamas, so for us taking the lowest place does not mean low self-esteem: it means stepping out of the way, so that in any encounter the other person is the one who matters. Difficult people then become our teachers of patience. With thanks to the Meridian Trust.
Guided Meditation - Equanimity, Even Care for the Neutral, the Dear and the Difficult Lama Alan · 26 minutes
Lama Alan Wallace guides the last of the four immeasurables, equanimity. You bring to mind a neutral person, then someone dear, then someone you find difficult, and in each case you see how transient the relationship is and how constantly that person, like you, wishes for happiness. With an orb of light at your heart you breathe in the darkness of their suffering and breathe out loving kindness, closing on the difficult person set free.
Guided Meditation - Tonglen, Sending and Receiving on Both Breaths Lama Alan · 25 minutes
Lama Alan takes tonglen through its full two-way cycle. You begin with yourself, breathing in the suffering you are vulnerable to and its inner causes, breathing out from the orb of light at your heart the wish that you flourish. You then let attention rove and settle where it will, on a loved one, a difficult person or a community, moving on like a bee from flower to flower. If attention scatters, you return to the breath and begin again.
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.
D1S1 - Conative Intelligence, and Two Kinds of Happiness Lama Alan · 69 minutes
Conation, the faculty of desire and intention, opens Lama Alan's four intelligences, each of which can run to deficit, excess or dysfunction, a grid from Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicine. He sets Einstein, who compared happiness as an absolute aim to the ambitions of a pig, against the Dalai Lama's refrain that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness, and turns to the wisdom traditions' hedonia, what we get from the world, and eudaimonia, what we bring to it. Teaching only, no practice.
Dealing with Attachment Glen Svensson · 72 minutes
Attachment is the near enemy of loving kindness, and Glen Svensson defines it as a mental factor that exaggerates an object's attractiveness and wants to hold on to it. In the guided practice you bring to mind a person or thing you cling to, loosen the grip, then look directly at the attachment itself. Glen dispels the common misconceptions that attachment is needed to enjoy things, to have relationships or to be creative, describing how ordinary food grew tastier during a long retreat as his craving subsided.

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