The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas
23 teachings in the library draw on this text.
- Day 7 - Closing Discussion David Oromith · 92 minutes · recorded January 6, 2025
The final morning revisits the fourfold vision quest meditation, held with loving kindness: what would bring true happiness, what is needed from others, how to transform, and what to offer the world. The group recites all 37 verses together as a closing contemplation, then breaks into small groups on which practice has landed most and what gets in the way, from workplace frustration to a longing for solitary practice. David closes with long life prayers and Shantideva's dedication.
- D5S3 - Non-Attachment, Generosity and the Roots of Ethics David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
Desire and aversion are treated as appearances without solid existence, like a rainbow that can be admired but never grasped, or the death of a child in a dream. David works through the three kinds of generosity, giving materially, offering protection, and offering the Dharma, then turns to ethical discipline as the foundation the whole path rests on, using a leaking boat as the image for a mind not yet guarded by good conduct.
- 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.
- D5S1 - Meeting Deprivation, Prosperity, Anger and Craving David Oromith · 81 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
A practice of bare attention across the senses builds toward resting in awareness itself. David works through verses on facing deprivation and prosperity without losing heart, then turns to anger and craving, using the image of salty water to show how craving only deepens thirst. The group asks about rumination, anxiety and turning anger at oneself into compassion.
- D4S4 - Bodhicitta's Final Steps, and Meeting Ordinary Scorn David Oromith · 55 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
The final meditation in this sequence combines the great resolve, the wish to free all beings, with the four immeasurables to complete bodhicitta. David turns to verse seventeen, on honouring someone who looks down on us out of arrogance rather than compete for status, and takes questions on where this shades into self-deprecation, whether the bodhisattva vow sounds egotistical, and where limited time is best spent, closing with the girl and the starfish: your bit is worth doing however small.
- D4S3 - Responding to Disgrace, Disparagement and Betrayal David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
After a meditation on affectionate love and compassion for all beings, David works through three verses of the text: meeting disgrace with kindness rather than argument, responding to public disparagement by offering the victory instead of escalating, and continuing to care for someone who turns on us after we have helped them. He explains cognitive fusion, treating bad behaviour as a person's whole identity, and takes questions on living this out at work.
- D4S2 - Everyone's Kindness, and Hard Questions About Rebirth David Oromith · 88 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
The session opens with a guided contemplation, continuing the previous one, in which we dwell on the care shown to us since birth, through learning to walk and talk, to the ordinary kindnesses that sustain daily life. A long discussion follows on the evidence and doubts around rebirth, including a mathematical objection to universal motherhood. David then turns to using suffering on the path, the image of the two arrows, and the RAIN practice for working with rising anger.
- D4S1 - The Continuum of Mind and Turning Loss into Practice David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
In this meditation we trace the mind back moment by moment to show it is beginningless, so every being has at some point been our mother or carer. David turns to using loss and theft on the path, drawing on karma and compassion for what drives someone to steal, and the story of Gyalse Togme dedicating his stolen robes to the thieves who took them. Questions cover lingering sadness in a practitioner of many years and whether dedication lessens a thief's karma.
- D3S4 - Equanimity and Tonglen, Two Meditations in Practice David Oromith · 59 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
Two guided meditations fill this hour. The first is equanimity, in which we work with a loved one, a stranger and someone difficult, to separate love from the grip of attachment. The second is tonglen: we breathe in the pain of someone we love as dark smoke, extinguished at a point of light in the heart, then send back everything good in return. David addresses the fear that tonglen means taking on suffering, and whether the same ignorance applies to animals.
- D3S3 - Mudita, Self-Cherishing, and the Roots of Tonglen David Oromith · 88 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
The session opens with a practice of mudita in which we delight in the good fortune of a friend, a stranger and someone we find difficult. David completes the seven point instruction on cause and effect, from recognising kindness to the great resolve, then explains why self-cherishing is the root of misery and how tonglen exchanges it for others. Questions turn to where kindness tips into people pleasing, and whether karma means we should not intervene in someone else's suffering.
- D3S1 - Loving Kindness, Refuge, and the Workings of Karma David Oromith · 90 minutes · recorded December 2, 2024
The morning's practice is loving kindness, extended in turn to oneself, a loved one, a stranger and someone difficult. David presents refuge in the three jewels as an active direction we take rather than protection handed to us, contrasting it with money, reputation and other worldly refuges that cannot ultimately help. Karma follows, covering the ten non-virtues and the four opponent powers used to purify a negative action: regret, reliance, remedy and resolve.
- 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.
- D5S4 - The Three Kinds of Patience, and a Farmer's 77 Problems David Oromith · 50 minutes · recorded November 29, 2024
The session opens with a brief practice of resting in awareness, before David turns to kshanti, patience in its fuller sense, transforming hardship rather than gritting your teeth through it. He covers patience with people who harm us, with the ordinary ups and downs of life, illustrated by the farmer with 77 problems whose real problem is his belief that he should have none, and with the slow pace of our own progress. The group asks whether he has met anyone who claims to be enlightened.
- D2S4 - The Company We Keep and the Qualities of a Teacher David Oromith · 55 minutes · recorded November 29, 2024
Vividness is the third quality built into shamatha, achieved by narrowing attention to the breath at the nostrils. David turns to the verse on avoiding destructive company, using the image of a crystal taking on the colour of whatever cloth it rests on, then to the contrasting verse on cherishing spiritual friends and the qualities to look for in a teacher. Discussion covers balancing this against one's own wellbeing, and advice on meditating with the eyes open.
- D6S3 - Completing the Text and Living It Day to Day David Oromith · 78 minutes · recorded November 28, 2024
A guided meditation on equalizing self and other leads into bodhicitta and a reflection on the rarity of a human life. David completes the text with the practice of applying antidotes the moment an affliction arises, using the image of a car ignored until the wheels fall off. Discussion covers how the 37 practices map onto the Four Noble Truths, book recommendations, and how to keep the teachings alive once the retreat ends.
- D6S2 - Self-Cherishing, Honest Speech and Healthy Boundaries David Oromith · 81 minutes · recorded November 28, 2024
In a meditation on exchanging self-cherishing for cherishing others we weigh putting our own happiness first against treating everyone's welfare as equal. David covers examining one's own faults rather than gossiping about others, when raising real harm differs from criticism born of jealousy, and speech that passes tests of being true, kind and well timed. Questions turn on boundaries, forgiveness and self-neglect.
- D6S1 - Diligence, Concentration and When to Step In David Oromith · 91 minutes · recorded November 28, 2024
In this patient acceptance practice we ask what changes when a real conflict is met with acceptance, understanding and compassion rather than resistance. David covers enthusiastic diligence and its three kinds of laziness, then concentration as the union of shamatha and vipassana, the Buddha's key innovation. Questions turn on witnessing cruelty, whether to speak when nothing you say will change the person, and how much capacity we have to live out our values.
- D3S2 - Compassion Practice and the Two Paths to Bodhicitta David Oromith · 84 minutes · recorded November 28, 2024
Compassion follows loving kindness as the second immeasurable, wishing others free of suffering rather than simply well. David explains why happiness chased through possessions never truly satisfies, using the story of buying a Dyson vacuum as a teenager expecting lasting contentment from it. Bodhicitta, the wish for enlightenment to benefit all beings, is introduced alongside two routes to it: seeing all beings as having once been one's mother, or exchanging self with others.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Day 1 - Introduction David Oromith · 59 minutes · recorded August 24, 2024
The retreat opens with a meditation on settling body, speech and mind through relaxation, stillness and alertness. David then introduces the 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas, telling the story of Gyelse Togme Zangpo giving his robes and blood to a diseased beggar, and outlines how the week will move through samatha, the four immeasurables and tonglen. He closes with the text's opening homage, on how emptiness and compassion stand together, and takes a question on how discussion will work.
- An Introduction to the 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas David Oromith · 42 minutes · recorded July 10, 2024
David explains bodhichitta and what makes someone a bodhisattva, and places the 37 Practices among the four classic lojong texts. Most of the evening is the life of Gyalse Tokme Zangpo, born in 1295 in central Tibet and orphaned young, hailed a second Asanga at nineteen. Too quiet and humble to attract patrons, he refused to perform village rituals for offerings and wrote these verses instead. The retreat on the text is in the library as a one week course.