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

Search Sangha Live

Inner Peace in a Chaotic World

With Ronya Banks recorded on November 25, 2018.

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

In this session Ronya leads us on a journey of exploring the Buddhist principles and practices specifically designed to promote “inner peace” – even amidst a chaotic world.

“Everybody wants a happy life. This goal is entirely dependent on our inner peace… We are trying to seek a joyful, happy life from the outside — that is a mistake.” – His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Many fellow humans find themselves stuck in seeking happiness and peace by attempting to create the conditions for the “perfect life”. This often becomes a very painful, disappointing, and futile endeavor as we realize that not only is it impossible to fully control our outer world, but that life is inherently imperfect.

Thankfully, ancient Buddhist teachings and practices help us cultivate a profound “inner peace” independent of external conditions.

During this “Inner Peace” session, Ronya covers:

The value in practicing Mindfulness to form an intimate connection with present personal experience.
Implementing counterforce measures to purify negative mental forces that rob us of inner peace.
Transmitting our newly cultivated inner peace and wisdom to the outer world.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Clarity, Presence and Love: Both on and off the Cushion

    Recorded : October 19, 2025

    How to meet the world’s joys and crises, alongside our deepening practice? Learn from the examples of Buddhist teachers and activists who engage with the world and create change from the presence, clarity and love of a dedicated dharma practice. Portraits of people and organisations:Dr A. T. Ariyaratne (1931 – 2024) and the Sarvodaya movementJoe…

    Read More

  • James Rafael

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with James Rafael – Week of April 24, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Fluidity and Flux: Gateways to a Kinder, More Inclusive World”. The Buddha’s teachings on impermanence and compassion offer us gateways to cultivate a kinder, more inclusive world for all. Impermanence connects us to a sense of fluidity and flux, where we can see through the illusion of solid binaries and fixed identities. This can inspire us toward action that includes, appreciates and holds others with kindness.

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Dharma, Intuition, and Imagination in Times of Change

    Recorded : May 30, 2021

    In this session, we explore the power of intuition and conscious use of the imaginal realm, on behalf of collective awakening. We are utilizing our imaginations all the time, by feeding conditioned thoughts, limiting assumptions, duality, and fear. What is the value of exercising our moral imagination in this time of collective change, as we…

    Read More

  •

    Waking down

    Recorded : November 26, 2017

    Rather than waking up it seems that most of us need to wake down. How can our insights and the awakening process move from being primarily experiential to becoming functional, relational, and lived? In this session Leela explores spiritual practice as a fundamentally earthly practice. How do we awake a presence that does not contract…

    Read More

  • Shaila Catherine

    Faith and confidence: the first spiritual faculty.

    Recorded : September 4, 2016

    Faith, confidence, and trust are English translations for the Pali term saddhā. In this talk, Shaila Catherine explores the cultivation of saddhā as an aid to awakening and as the first in the list of spiritual faculties that include faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom.

    Read More

  • Nina la Rosa

    Working with difficult emotions.

    Recorded : December 4, 2016

    Feelings have the power to motivate one toward wise action when facing a challenge. They can also cause intense suffering, drive and distort behavior, and lead to regret. Being able to work with emotions, both intense and subtle, is a skill that can be developed through mindfulness meditation. We explore the Unified Mindfulness technique of…

    Read More

  •

    Who Am I?

    Recorded : March 10, 2019

    “Who Am I?” is a fundamental question. You have to live the question, day in and day out. You cannot think through an answer. The self (‘I’ and ‘my’) lands on objects, voluntarily or involuntarily. Primary objects of interest include forms, feelings, perceptions, formations of mind/speech/body and consciousness (mindfulness, awareness, concentration and meditation). The self…

    Read More

  •

    Suffering and the end of suffering.

    Recorded : January 24, 2016

    The ancient and radical teachings of the Buddha point to the possibility to be a free, loving and happy human being in the midst of our everyday lives. Oftentimes our stress, dissatisfaction or suffering come not necessarily from the actual things or events themselves, but from our relationship to them. A different way of looking…

    Read More