Practice Library

The four thoughts that turn the mind

14 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.

• Session Three - Karma, Dukkha and the Spirit of Emergence David Oromith · 59 minutes · recorded February 28, 2026

  David talks about the last two thoughts that turn the mind: karma, how our intentional actions shape our future, and dukkha, the unsatisfactoriness of constant seeking. He explains why reducing anger or attachment even slightly shows freedom is possible, and why the four lead to renunciation, or the spirit of emergence. Questions cover the four opponent powers for purifying karma, and children who recall past lives. In the closing practice we bring the day together and set an intention.

• Session Two - Impermanence, Change and Letting Go David Oromith · 72 minutes · recorded February 28, 2026

  David talks about impermanence and our own mortality, and why we act as if situations, other people and even ourselves are fixed. He explains why our need for control comes from tying our happiness to things outside us, and uses the image of a songbird in an open palm, enjoyed without gripping because we know it will fly away. In the guided contemplation we watch the changes in the body, the mind and the world around us. Questions cover fear of death, and grief.

• Session One - The Precious Human Life and Making Practice a Priority David Oromith · 70 minutes · recorded February 28, 2026

  David talks about the four thoughts that turn the mind, which Lama Alan translates as the four revolutions in outlook, beginning with the precious human life. He runs through the eight freedoms and ten endowments and how rare they are, and explains why practice means prioritising what matters in daily life rather than waiting for more time. In the analytical meditation, built on the Dalai Lama's words, we contemplate this good fortune and rest in the resolve not to waste it.

• 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 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
• Grief and loss 13
• Perception and projection 13
• Dependent origination 12
• Refuge 11
• Not-self (anatta) 10
• 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