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

Embracing the First Noble Truth: Dukkha and Destructive Emotions

With Dave Smith recorded on January 24, 2021.

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

Coming to terms with the teaching and implications of the first noble truth can be challenging, confusing and ongoing. When we are unable to do the hard work of completing the task of the first truth, to embrace Dukkha, we become vulnerable to destructive emotions.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Paul Burrows

    Death and the dance of self.

    The Buddhadharma is bursting with ways to find helpful perspectives on our troubles. With awareness and investigation we can unpack the nub of clinging which keeps us bound to old and unhelpful ways of seeing ourselves and the world. As we learn to work with self-centred clinging, we make ourselves available to a liberated perspective…

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 23 February, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Fire of Desire and the Path of Release

    Strong desire moves us-towards love, security, meaning, awakening. Our longings promise fulfillment and yet generate restlessness. This week we’ll explore how craving solidifies identity and how clinging feeds suffering. By understanding the dynamics of attachment, we cultivate the courage to release. Where grasping softens, life renews itself from within.

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

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of 26 January, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Tender Edge of Awareness: Befriending the Unwanted Within

    We all encounter emotions we’d rather not admit to ourselves and others. Self-righteousness, rage, ill will, revenge, vanity or greed are just a few of the dynamics the Buddha encouraged us to have a good eye on. In the upcoming week, we will practice how to meet such dynamics with the necessary clarity rather than self-judgement or denial.

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

    Read More

  • Moving Beyond the Myth of Loneliness

    What changes as we consciously turn toward our suffering, rather than away? We are conditioned to experience ourselves as separate from life, but in that outward gaze, we often overlook an experience of belonging that is inherent. How does our habit of seeking shift when we recognize that what we long for can never actually…

    Read More

  • Stephen Fulder

    Is Samsara Fixable?

    We are going through difficult and uncertain times and we long for relief. There is much we can do to help ourselves and our community. Yet this can also include accessing a more transcendent perspective, in which we take the pains of samsara less personally. Nondual dharma invites us to see life as perfect just…

    Read More