Meditation is where the body and mind interact. Physical form creates the boundary within which to dwell. No third party is needed, no abstractor, no one to do anything. Just allow body and mind to come into harmony autonomously.

What tells you you have a body? Guidance provided to sense the particular signals that tell us we have a body in the forms of elements and directions.

Guidance to settle into the seated posture, relaxing the body, sensing ground and space.

Ajahn Sucitto addresses a form of bodily discrimiation called “headism.” It says, “I’m on top, everything is secondary to me,” and it drags everything underneath it around. Headism can be overcome by operating through the body rather than through the head. It can be practiced in walking meditation.

The contemplative process is one where you bring to mind simple things and put aside what’s unnecessary, obstructive and irrelevant. Not with aversion, but just noticing that in most of our life we’re moving forward into qualities of pressure, important business, people – but they’re only there because your mind put them there. There doesn’t have to be the drive forward, doesn’t have to be a next. Take time to stop and notice what’s not needed, notice what’s already here.

The key to the Buddha’s awakening was his use of appropriate attention. Attention is either grounded in the right place or the wrong place, it’s one or the other. The lens of attention and the attitudes we bring to it are extremely significant. It matters how we are seeing things. Our attention is very potent. Whatever you attend to – doubt or confidence, aversion or goodwill – you’ll get more of it. Attention is an amplifier.

The single most important quality of standing meditation is balance. This is the place of least stress, of most harmony. Guidance is provided to sense into this balance where it’s just the muscular alignment that’s holding you up. Locking places can then relax and release.

The energy body is a particular fullness of being – this is citta. As it’s more completed, it becomes less obstructed. Take time to gather and center in the completed citta, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Meditation means to return time and time again.

Puja is a time for offering, for being received into a quality of blessedness and welcome, just as you are. The mind searches for directions – all reasonable, but don’t follow it. Notice the energy of the movement that’s occurring now – no future, no past.

Ajahn Sucitto responds to this question by first reframing it – rather than thinking: here’s the real world, how can I fit my practice into that? Consider: here’s the real practice, what kind of world can I operate in from that place? The reality that’s available to us all, regardless of place or position as monastic or lay person, is refuge. And the real refuge is in your presence. Be a refuge unto yourself.