Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind

With Shaila Catherine recorded on April 24, 2022.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

Shaila will be sharing teachings from her new book, Beyond Distraction. This talk will introduce five pragmatic strategies to help you overcome distraction in meditation and develop clarity in relationships, work, and daily life. The strategies are: replacing, examining, ignoring, investigating, and resolving. You can learn to unlock the incredible capacities of your mind to think clearly, reflect deeply, discern reality, and know what is actually happening in your life.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Ven. Pannavati Bikkhuni

    All Worldly Dharma is Buddha Dharma

    Nowadays, many Buddhist practitioners have mistaken views. Taking the false to be true, we can make some progress, but not much. Only in the light of wisdom can we awaken to the truth because it allows us to penetrate avidya — the karmic hindrance of non-understanding that is complicating our lives. Join us for a discussion…

    Read More

  • George Haas

    Meditation and Attachment Theory

    We will discuss Attachment Theory in the context of Buddhist Theravada Practice, exploring the traditional Buddhist path to liberation using descriptions of Attachment conditioning as a way to understand obstacles to practice. We will learn skillful ways of assembling an inner circle of close people to support your path to enlightenment.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    As wide as life and as open as space: practicing inclusivity.

    As we get familiar with the practice of meditation and the language of Dharma teachings, we can find ourselves getting comfortable, even complacent. Yet our practice in many ways is designed to make us uncomfortable! Designed to keep us open to ambiguity and uncertainty, to invite us to question and explore rather than to settle…

    Read More

  • Brian Dean Williams

    The Power of Connection

    The pandemic has highlighted now, more than ever, how interconnected we are with life on this planet, and also the importance of human connection for us as social animals. The preciousness of relationship is at the heart of Buddhist teachings. How can our meditation practice help us to remain connected and integrated with ourselves, others,…

    Read More

  • Kaira Jewel Lingo

    There is no Way to Peace, Peace is the Way

    As the planet heats up, and hostilities flare between groups and nations, how do we touch and embody the possibility of peace, right here and now? Peace in the future is founded on peace in the present moment. The same is true of justice, and liberation. These are not things we have to wait for…

    Read More

  • Climate Code Red

    However challenging, we are in these times because we need to be here. We are here to release from what no longer serves and to infuse a new story with clear, wise, conscious intention; a story about building our collective resilience as we rise, with compassion, to save what we can.

    Read More

  • Meeting Grief with Love

    Amidst so many changes and so much loss this year, many of us are grieving. We may be grieving the loss of a loved one, of our own health, of a job, or even a way of life. Come gather in community to explore how we can meet our grief with tenderness, create space to…

    Read More

  • Jill Satterfield

    The Kindness of Softness and Space

    Softness and spaciousness can be cultivated and called upon when needed.The sensations of softness are reflective of ease and equanimity – the feeling of spaciousness, reflective of non-clinging. Both create a natural letting go, flow and arising of love, kindness and tenderness.Embodiment offers a broad range of skillful means. We’ll invite these qualities and directly…

    Read More