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

Skillful Ways to Work with Difficult Thoughts in Meditation

With Lisa Ernst recorded on November 21, 2021.

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

There’s a misconception that thoughts are a hindrance to deep meditation and tranquility. Especially during this ongoing challenging time, certain thoughts may be persistent and difficult to release. Yet, thoughts themselves are not the problem; it’s our relationship to them that determines whether or not they impede our meditation. In this session, we will explore a number of skillful ways to work with difficult or persistent thoughts in meditation to support inner well-being and clarity.

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

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Christine Kupfer

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christine Kupfer – Week of February 26, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Fear and Fearlessness in the Midst of Uncertainty”. We try to secure our lives by any means necessary. We do our best, we tend to our business, and boom!, a crisis occurs. Whether it’s an ecological, political, pandemic, professional, relational or spiritual crisis…  life does not leave us settled, bringing up a whole procession of fears and worries. So how can we find peace? How can we become fearless? This is the theme we will explore this week on Sangha Live.

    Read More

  • Befriending the emotions.

    So often we struggle because we’re resisting, fixing, changing, or even “transcending” our experiences. What shifts when instead of pushing our emotions away, we invite them closer in? What changes when we learn to relate to our emotions like a welcoming friend? And, what changes when we are able to access the place in which…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Letting your heart break … open.

    Martin looks at current events with an eye on the suffering of refugees, the climate emergency and growing Islamophobia, exploring how we can both empathize with and respond to human suffering, while also cultivating joy, gratitude and ease of heart.

    Read More

  • Vimalasara Mason-John

    Emptied Inside Out

    Vimalasara takes a look at some of the teachings that point to the insanity in life. Join her in taking a look at form, feelings, perception, mental formation and consciousness, and discovering every day that we can be reminded of the meaninglessness of these mental constructions.

    Read More

  • Nirmala Werner

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nirmala Werner – Week of 06 April, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Spiral Path

    Practice often unfolds in spirals rather than straight lines. The path includes phases of clarity and confusion, opening and contraction. Again and again it turns and circles back. This week, we will explore how trust in the path can grow through these cycles, as we keep returning to awareness, patience, and the unfolding of the Dharma.

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

    Read More

  • Toby Sola

    The Concentration Algorithm

    Discover a “concentration algorithm” that transforms your practice. Instead of fighting distractions, this approach teaches you to work with them skillfully. When your concentration wavers, notice what captured your attention, then make that distraction your new meditation object. This process reveals two valuable insights: first, that any sensory experience can serve as a meditation anchor…

    Read More

  • Developing the Power of Heart and Mind

    Power matters when free from any corruption of mind, gross or subtle. We need to develop our power rather than feel powerless, indecisive or exploitive. Power emerges from unification of our whole being, focussing on a priority and sometimes engaging in a level of boldness. The Buddha referred to four areas to develop inner power…

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of March 8, 2021

    This week’s topic is The Freedom of an Unassuming Mind.

    The Buddha used the image of a tangled and knotted thread to represent the complex roots of human suffering and distress. It takes sensitivity, persistence, and care to disentangle the tangle of ‘dukkha’. A tricky part of this is that our assumptions about the world radically shape the way the world appears, while remaining quite hidden to us. Fortunately, wisdom teachings and practices bring assumptions into view and support the untying of these unseen knots, opening us into a wide and free existence.

    Read More