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

Search Sangha Live

How to Find Balance in Difficult Times

With Oren Jay Sofer recorded on June 2, 2019.

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

Equanimity is balance that comes from wisdom; it’s our heart and mind’s capacity to roll with the inevitable challenges and changes of life without taking it personally, without falling into despair or hopeless. Rather than a bland state of neutrality, or a cold state of indifference, equanimity gives us a wide space to feel the whole range of human experience, and the poise to act with wisdom and care rather than reactivity. Whether it’s personal loss and difficulty, challenges in relationship, or the immense pain our world is facing, equanimity is the indispensable quality that allows us to meet life with grace and balance, and at times to keep going in the face of extraordinary hardship.

In this session you’ll learn tools to:

Find balance with difficult emotions
Understand how we get reactive and what helps us to let go
Get perspective when challenged or overwhelmed

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Miles Kessler

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of 20 October, 2025

    This week, we’re delighted to have Miles Kessler guiding our Daily Meditation sessions. May they enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Meditation And The Dark Night Of The Soul

    The “Dark Night Of The Soul” is nothing less than an ego death, and rebirth process that everyone goes through from time to time in life. As it happens, the “Dark Night Of The Soul” is also beautifully “coded” into insight meditation practices through a series of advanced stages know as the “Dukkha Nanas”. The “Dark Night” stages are awaiting everyone who is walking the path of meditative insight.
    In this week of Daily Meditations with Sangha Live, you are invited to join in a teaching of “Meditation And The Dark Night Of The Soul.” Throughout this week, you will explore how the “Dark Night Of The Soul” process unfolds in the stages of insight meditation. And more importantly, how the insights of these stages inform us in our lives.

    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 March 29, 2021

    This week’s theme is: Re-Enchanting Our Practice. As much as anything else our practice of mindfulness and meditation can become a habit, and either turn dull, or come with a sense of obligation, work, or duty. In this week together, we will explore ways to bring imagination, embodiment, and intimacy to our practice. After all, meditation is as much a craft as an artform – a chance to discover inner landscapes, hidden mysteries and fascinating insights.

    As much as anything else our practice of mindfulness and meditation can become a habit and either turn dull or come with a sense of obligation, work or duty. In this week together, we will explore ways to bring imagination, embodiment, and intimacy to our practice. After all, meditation is as much a craft as an art form – a chance to discover inner landscapes, hidden mysteries and fascinating insights.

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of December 13, 2021

    This week’s theme is: A Bright Presence.

    Making an effort isn’t always easy; yet, how we show up really matters. Dharma teachings can help to enliven our sense of enthusiasm and energy on the path of practice. This week we’ll dive into different ways of engaging with our life, on the meditation seat and off. From soft delight to sustained dedication, let’s wake up fully with life — in life, and for life.

    Read More

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of 13 October, 2025

    We’re delighted to have Ulla Koenig guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these gatherings enrich your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Metta in Action

    To be met with metta is to be received with basic respect and a sense of intrinsic worth-simply because we exist. It’s not something we earn or measure; it’s a fundamental recognition of our being. This week, we explore how to extend such warmth toward ourselves. And we’ll look at how metta supports accountability, nurtures integrity, and helps us respond to criticism with clarity and compassion-opening the door to deeper self-understanding and genuine growth.

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

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Intimacy and infinity: beyond inner and outer.

    Recorded : April 26, 2015

    WorldwideInsight.org’s founding teacher Martin Aylward explores the tension we tend to feel between inner experience and outer engagement, self and world, being and doing. Martin leads a guided meditation and offer teachings on cultivating an inclusive practice, where our contact, curiosity and care go to whatever arises, whether ‘in here’ or ‘out there’.

    Read More

  • Lisa Ernst

    The Gap and The Second Noble Truth

    Recorded : June 7, 2026

    There’s a moment before craving takes hold – a gap. In that space, we gradually cultivate choice in how to respond. This talk explores the Second Noble Truth: how reaching and pushing away pulls us from the present, and how the practice of recognizing the gap – whether a split second or something larger –…

    Read More

  •

    Living the Bodhisattva Vow

    Recorded : February 1, 2026

    In Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is one who, having realized deep insight into the nature of self and reality, dedicates their life to alleviating suffering and guiding others toward awakening. Through examining the foundational principles of the vow of the Bodhisattva, we will consider what it means to be “Bodhisattvas in training” and how this intention…

    Read More

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 06 January, 2025

    We are grateful to have Christopher Titmuss guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Each Moment, New Moment

    A week of practice to begin the year, with reflections on beginnings, commitments and a free attitude to life.

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

    Read More