Eight Verses of Training the Mind
7 teachings in the library draw on this text.
- Guided Meditation - Avalokiteshvara, Visualisation and Mantra David Oromith · 23 minutes · recorded March 5, 2026
A full Avalokiteshvara practice led line by line. You visualise the four armed form of compassion, with friends and family beside you, difficult people in front and all beings filling the space, then recite refuge and bodhicitta and contemplate the four immeasurables. The mantra comes with light purifying body, speech and mind, then the eight verses of training the mind, a dissolution into your heart, and dedication.
- Session 4 - The Eight Verses of Training the Mind David Oromith · 84 minutes · recorded July 2, 2025
In tonglen we begin with a short visualisation of receiving love, then breathe in a loved one's suffering as a dark cloud, transform it at the heart, and send back well-being, widening out to groups: guided throughout. David covers verse seven, on secretly taking on others' pain, and verse eight on the eight worldly concerns and emptiness, illustrated with bread that is empty of breadness. Tessa asks about research into benefits for others; Michelle raises clutter and body image.
- Session 3 - The Eight Verses of Training the Mind David Oromith · 83 minutes · recorded June 26, 2025
Loving kindness and compassion are extended from self to a loved one, a neutral person, a difficult person and finally a wide group, guided throughout as preparation for next week's tonglen practice. David works through verses five and six of the Eight Verses: offering the victory rather than retaliating, and viewing someone who wrongs us as a teacher, illustrated with the story of the borrowed baby. Members share how they tried the practice at home and at work.
- Session 2 - The Eight Verses of Training the Mind David Oromith · 87 minutes · recorded June 18, 2025
This second session opens with a twenty minute meditation in which we settle body and mind, then recite the eight verses together. David works through the third verse on watching the mind and applying antidotes to afflictions, then the fourth on cherishing difficult people as a rare chance to practise compassion. A poll shows self cherishing can hide inside low self esteem as much as pride. Questions cover compassion versus empathy, accepting compliments, and giving victory to others.
- Session 1 - The Eight Verses of Training the Mind David Oromith · 89 minutes · recorded June 11, 2025
This first session on the Eight Verses of Training the Mind opens with a guided meditation on settling the body, taking refuge and generating bodhicitta. David gives the lineage of Geshe Langri Thangpa, reads the text, then works through the first two verses: cherishing all beings as the basis of practice and happiness, and taking the humble position rather than seeing ourselves as important. Stories of Atisha and Drom Tonpa illustrate humility, and questions cover therapeutic lying and patience.
- The Path of Wisdom and Compassion Thubten Chodron · 119 minutes · recorded November 28, 2024
Ven. Thubten Chodron argues that the mind is not the brain, drawing on her exchanges with reductionist scientists at the Mind and Life meetings. She describes the periscope of I, me and mine through which everything is filtered, so that the same words only sting when aimed at us. Most of the talk works through the Eight Verses of Training the Mind with the Dalai Lama's commentary from Approaching the Buddhist Path, dwelling on the first five and reading the rest for transmission.
- Lojong, the Eight Verses of Mind Training Lama Alan · 28 minutes
Lama Alan Wallace works through the Eight Verses of Mind Training of Langri Tangpa, verse by verse. You learn to hold others supremely dear, to seek out their virtues rather than their faults, to catch a mental affliction the moment it stirs, and to treat difficult people as rare treasure. The closing verses turn to tonglen and to freeing practice from the eight worldly concerns and from grasping at a reality he describes as dreamlike.