Click here to join our daily meditations to support establishing a regular sitting practice.

When in doubt breathe out: the power of the breath to ease pain and other contracted states.

With Vidyamala Burch recorded on April 16, 2017.

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

In this talk Vidyamala discusses how most of us hold the breath whenever we are in pain or other difficult states. She leads a ‘whole body’ breathing meditation followed by input on how to rest in the flow of the breath as a way to learn to rest in the flow of life and let go of the resistance that causes so much extra suffering.

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

Discussion

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of September 5, 2022

    This week’s topic is “Awakening into Experience Here and Now”. “You shouldn’t chase after the past
    or place expectations on the future.
    What is past
    is left behind.
    The future
    is as yet unreached.
    Whatever quality is present
    you clearly see right there,
    right there.
    Not taken in,
    unshaken,
    that’s how you develop the heart.” (MN 131)

    The essence of the Buddha’s teachings lies in these words. Unshakability and freedom are at the heart of awakening, they are what we cultivate in our practice. This week we will practice turning to our experience in ways that wake us up, right here and now.

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    The Unshakeable Heart: Liberation as the Ultimate Resilience

    Is it possible to live and love freely amidst the greed, aggression and dysfunction of the world?⁠⁠Amidst so much suffering, can you nourish joy, lightness and laughter?⁠⁠When it feels as if you’re drowning, might it be that you are floating in an ocean of blessings?⁠⁠In times of political polarisation and dysfunction, broken societal modelling, a…

    Read More

  • Nina la Rosa

    Freedom through focusing in.

    Before this live session, Nina wrote: “I want to share a mindfulness technique this Sunday that’s particularly alive in my life right now. As a new mother I’ve experienced an increase in planning, anticipating, worrying, and fear. Before the birth of my daughter a few months ago I read a book by Karen Maezen Miller,…

    Read More

  • Jaya Rudgard

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of November 7, 2022

    This week’s theme is A Gentle and Playful Heart”. A week of morning meditations orienting to the qualities of playfulness and gentleness. When we neither meet ourselves or each other with harshness nor take ourselves too seriously, we find a genuine inner strength. Whether we feel we have lots of energy and motivation for practice, or little, exploring these qualities will refresh the heart and mind and support us in meeting the challenges of our week.

    Read More

  • Liberation Now: From the Progressive Path to Direct Experience

    In a progressive path approach to practice, we sometimes fall for the idea that liberation is in the future. We are conditioned to believe that we must end thinking, master practices, meditate for years, and purify our minds. Without realizing it, our beliefs can maintain the conditioning that stands in the way of our direct…

    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

    For the love of mindfulness!

    Mindfulness practice has burst out of its Buddhist origins and is hugely impacting the culture at large, particularly in the fields of education, healthcare and business. Some delight in the liberating possibilities of this, and some are concerned about what they see as the ‘dumbing down’ of the practice, or the exclusion of important areas…

    Read More

  • Kittisaro

    The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings

    On a Full Moon in the early years after the Buddha’s awakening, 1250 enlightened disciples spontaneously gathered to be in the presence of the Blessed One. His succinct teachings on that occasion, known as the Ovada Patimokkha, distill the essence of the Path leading to Nibbana.

    Read More