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

Consuming the Chaos: Exploring Surviving Suffering in a World of Suffering

With Lama Rod Owens recorded on March 28, 2021.

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

Buddhadharma is a system of profound wisdom that helps us to tell the truth about our lives. It helps us to consume the chaos of the world we are struggling through by reminding us of the spaciousness that is always inherently present in and around anything we experience as suffering. When we connect to this spaciousness and allow it to hold everything, we begin to consume the discomfort instead of it consuming us.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Transforming the poisons.

    Buddha points out the three main ways we get pulled into activity and self-contraction – Greed, Hatred and Delusion – which Martin often translates as Desire, Defense and Distraction. This class explores creative ways of meeting these forces in everyday life, and explores powerful reflections for each of the three.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of Nov 15, 2022

    This week’s topic is Kindle the Flame. Metta practice, which nourishes the heart’s capacity for friendliness, brings many benefits. It softens our relationship to ourselves, nourishes us with a sense of connection, puts challenges into perspective and offers a safe ground from which we can meet life with a sense of care. We dedicate this week to (re)ignite the flame of metta, using as an inspiration the Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, a famous discourses of the Buddha.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 17 November, 2025

    We’re delighted that Christopher Titmuss is guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. We hope you find them enriching for your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Going Beyond the World

    Dharma practitioners tend to spend much time giving attention to practise. This is a worthwhile endeavour but it seems to go on and on until death. We can conclude that practice means improving the quality of our life, reducing suffering in our lives and showing kindness and compassion to others. Yes, this is significant. It is a credit to dedicated practitioners committed to exploration of such experiences as a way of life. This is not the core purpose of the Dharma but an important preparation for Going Beyond the World.
    We have to understand what we mean by the world and going beyond the world.
    In these five sessions, we will explore the core purpose in diverse ways. Talks, guided meditations and Q&A form the backbone of the inquiry. Every session will offer everyday examples of the theme of the session to enable seeing the world and confirming going beyond the world.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • James Baraz

    Awakening Joy: Practice as a Path of Happiness

    Joy is both a Factor of Enlightenment and one of the four Divine Abodes. Today, as we are bombarded with news that heightens our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever it’s vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of spiritual practice. We need to remember how to stay…

    Read More

  • The Path of the Bodhisattva: Choosing a Life of Kindness

    The path of the Bodhisattva asks us to dedicate ourselves to the well-being of all sentient beings – to show up as best as we can for ourselves, each other, and the natural world with a quality of no-matter-whatness. It’s an impossible though necessary task. Yet the teachings and practices of everyday dharma offer accessible,…

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of 16 June, 2025

    We’re grateful to have Nathan Glyde leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they support and enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Stillness Dancing

    Meditation cultivates vibrant tranquillity, not frozen silence. Like a stirred pond settling into clarity, we release agitation. Like an owl gliding soundlessly at dusk, we quiet ourselves – not to mute, but to listen deeply. In flowing stillness, we find wisdom and care, opening to a practice that is wholesome and inclusive.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More