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

Understanding and developing Citta (heart-mind)

With Dave Smith recorded on January 28, 2018.

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

All schools of Buddhism acknowledge that the development of Citta is an essential aspect of the awakening process. Within classical Mindfulness teachings, it encompasses the entirely of the third foundation of practice. At its core, it encourages us to recognize the presence and absence of greed, hatred and delusion. In its fruition it points to embodying a mind and heart of wisdom, kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In this teaching session Dave outlines the basic nuts and bolts of how this can be understood and developed, both on and off the cushion.

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Our sensitivity is our greatest strength.

    Being human is an inevitably vulnerable experience. The challenge lies in being taught that there is something wrong with us for feeling as sensitive and vulnerable as we do, We learn to cover up or numb out our sensitivity.Practice teaches us to turn towards, rather than away, from vulnerability, and allow it to affirm the…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Martin Aylward – Week of 06 October, 2025

    We’re honored to have Martin Aylward offering our Daily Meditation sessions this week. We hope they are nourishing for your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Embracing Complexity and Contradiction

    A week of exploring and cultivating a life and practice of radical open-heartedness

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

    Read More

  • The Energy of Presence

    This session explores ways that qigong, a Chinese energy cultivation practice, can deepen our embodied presence. There is discussion, intention-led movement and meditation to help ground our awareness, free up blockages and discover ways to open to our natural vitality. All levels of experience and abilities welcome, and options for limited mobility and seated qigong are shared.

    Read More

  • 2026: Where to Now? Dharma Practice in Times of Crisis

    As we enter a year marked by global uncertainty, collective grief, and profound transition, many wonder: How do we practice now? We’ll explore how Dharma can serve as a living refuge, not as withdrawal from the world, but as a steady ground for clarity, compassion, and ethical response. And how response to suffering, our own…

    Read More

  • Dave Smith

    Genuine Happiness: An Alternative Perspective

    So much of what we hear and learn about within Dharma practice places an arguably unnecessary emphasis on suffering (dukkha). While the acceptance of suffering (dukkha) is an important and essential aspect of the path, it is by no means the end of the story. In one of the Buddha’s oldest descriptions of what it…

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Luminous Darkness: A Path for Seeing Clearly from the Heart

    One of the gifts of global uncertainty is that it requires us to recognize and release unconscious biases that have been passed down for generations. These include the perception that splits into opposites and values light over dark, speed over slowing down, productivity over attunement, and conclusion over not knowing. Awakening requires that we soften…

    Read More

  • Jessica Morey

    Showing up Fully in the Full Catastrophe

    As a new parent, working full time, facing the daily news of global conflict and environment crisis, liberation can sometimes seem far off to me. And yet, every day is a new opportunity to use the Buddha’s teachings to stay present, soft hearted, and courageous. In this Sunday session, we’ll explore practical dharma insights and…

    Read More