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

  • Ralph Steele

    Embodying cultural diversity: dancing with the basket of virtue

    Our Sangha has been predominately white since it branched off from the Asian countries. This Dharma talk offers a path for deeper inquiry and greater insight into how we can embody cultural diversity. The Eight Noble Truths will guide us toward a healthier way of conducting ourselves in the arena of cultural diversity, taking a…

    Read More

  • Ronya Banks

    Depth of Spiritual Practice – Even in a Chaotic World

    “Practicing systematically, taking the time to go into deep practice and making it the number one priority, leads to a state where the mind is very still and malleable and can investigate.” – Nikki Mirghafori As the human race’s daily living pace continues to speed up and an increasing sense of insecurity and doubt arise…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Aditthana: The art of commitment

    New year’s resolutions are often unrealistically ambitious and doomed to failure. In this first Sangha Live class of the year, our founding teacher Martin Aylward explores the art of wise commitment; how to refine what one is committing to in a way that is useful, precise, realistic and time-boundaried; elements that allow us to align…

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of February 20, 2023

    This week’s topic is Subtilising Experience. The Dharma is a path to awakening. Our experience becomes more liberated as we awaken. Similarly, we can notice that our life progresses from the gross to the more subtle in awakening. A path of awakening freedom, then, is a path of subtilising: from perceptions of self and things in the world to space-time and even awareness, all phenomena transition from rigid and gross to fluid and refined, all the way to barely here at all.

    Read More

  • Sangha: You Are Not Alone!

    The Buddha’s insight that all things arise dependent on something else points to a universe in ongoing relational flow. When experienced directly, we know this flow to be love. Together we will open to receive the many ways we are touched by life through our connections to each other and the Earth, our ancestors and…

    Read More

  • Dave Smith

    Practicing metta vipassana

    In this talk Dave discusses the process of integrating heart practices within the four foundations of mindfulness. Mindfulness practice unites the steadiness of concentration with the immediacy of moment to moment experience. As we learn to collect the body and mind, intuitive wisdom arises. This allows us to open to the truth of each moment’s…

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Compassion, Emergence and Climate Change

    This year, humanity has witnessed the alarming acceleration of climate change… the loss of forests and rivers, animal and plant species… and the potential annihilation of our species. Alongside our profound grief for what is changing globally, however, we are also experiencing Emergence.  Emergence, the organizing principle of Gaia, can help us to stay present as…

    Read More