Four compass points to orient around while on retreat: how you relate to the earth, to other people, to your body and to the sacred; an explanation of pūjā – recollections and making offerings, as with the offering of food.

What is it that we need to take Refuge from? The poisons of greed, hatred and delusion that mask themselves and corrupt our hearts and minds. This requires reorienting from worldly ways and orienting around what has value and meaning, that which you can trust: virtue, embodiment, nature and other people.

In meditation both the topic and the manner in which we attend can help train our mode of mental engagement. Shifting from stressful tendencies of “making it happen” and “getting it right”, come back to the natural body. This living system is the source for a steady, safe and easeful state.

Discernment helps filter from the amalgam of experience what’s skillful now. Having picked up what is skillful one lingers in it, dwells in it, sustains it. This is calming. So skim off stressful habits of “trying to make it work”, “getting on to the next”. Use the body to learn what the mind is happy to linger in.

The search for happiness, security and steadiness binds us in a tangle of stressful and unsatisfactory experiences – because we’re looking in the wrong place. Wisdom/discernment helps us detangle and discern what to set aside and what is worth bearing in mind.

Our walking gets programmed by the drives of the mind. Whatever affects the mind affects the nervous system of the body – the body shows us the effects of our thinking. Walking meditation can return us to the natural quality of the body, so the mind can relax.

Meditation practice instructs us to sustain harmonious relationship with our minds, bodies and the world – to not be dominating, not to grasp or push away, but to be present. Sometimes an open accepting awareness, rather than a focus on a particular object, is the proper mode. When mental and body energies are in sync there’s a sense of harmony and unification. This is samādhi.

Phenomena that are mutable, not solid, and dependently arisen become experienced as fixed and solid by unconscious grasping and holding on. The relationship is then one of fixation. A more mature relationship is not based on eliminating displeasure but on responsiveness and flexibility. With practice one can feel comfortable with things that are uncomfortable.

Before reviewing the themes that present themselves to us in meditation, we need the support of safety and ground. Guidance is provided to establish center, ground and safety in this embodiment.

The habit of clinging stems from a search for safety and security, yet we cling to that which can never provide security. It’s not easy to give up clinging, so an inner strengthening is required – energetically, psychologically and emotionally.

Q1: ways of strengthening the citta; Q2 31:37 How can one best work with the citta? Q3 34:01 What is the relationship of intuitive awareness to the citta? Q4 36:56 Could you say something more about the sacred? Q5 40:10 greed and aversion – are they two sides of the same coin? Can one exist without the other? Q6 46:46 What is animita (signless) samādhi as opposed to nimitta samādhi or jhāna?

Creating a feedback loop to keep citta refreshed and nourished strengthens our ability to meet the uncomfortable. This can’t be done through the virtual realm of the intellect; take time every day to touch into bodily presence without adjusting anything or turning away. That steady presence becomes the place of regeneration and refreshment.

The deeply ingrained reactivity to jump from unpleasant feeling is saṇkhāra. We leave the richness and intelligence of embodiment for the virtual world of programs and drives. Steadying and stabilizing the bodily energies with ānāpānasati develops a different kind of saṇkhāra, one that responds to phenomena with non-demand and acceptance.

With devotional practices we choose to direct ourselves in terms of awakening. Pūjā gives the occasion to settle in our Refuge quality rather than our personal kamma. This is the way we build up a reference point to cultivate and clear the kamma of the person within the field of sangha.

We can learn to relate to the conditioned world with a sense of knowing it doesn’t work, dealing with the inevitable clashes and frictions with a mind that is spacious, that can digest the chafing. Nourish and strengthen citta through qualities of goodwill, patience and acceptance facilitate disengagement. Then the heart is not troubled by things not going its way.

Our conditioning and underlying programs have us aiming at unattainable benchmarks. We come to believe it’s possible to make everything work, make things efficient, clear, comfortable. But this only sets us up for suffering. So we practice to purify intention and attention, widening the range of what our citta can bear with and accommodate. We’re then able to be with the uncomfortable without suffering.

Take away the track of conditioned intentions – better, more efficient, goal orientation. Learn to sense into the intention of the citta here and now. Effort informed by the spiritual faculties is a means to stave off hindrances. The first right effort is to dwell in what is skillful.

How to clear stuck sankharas (greed/overeating, fear); clarifying samatha, vipassana, samādhi; clarifying language: rūpa, nāma-rūpa

The qualities of goodwill, compassion, gladness and equanimity can be cultivated to generate a subtle form, a subtle state of consciousness. Abiding and lingering in these qualities, citta sustains consciousness in that mode, sees objects in that light, and experiences itself in that light making human life manageable, fruitful, enjoyable.

A review of the four points recommended to orient around: 1) The sacred - virtue and truth, 2) other people, 3) the subtle body/body energies, 4) nature. These are means for becoming more embodied and heartful, and regaining our natural intelligence.

The theme of this meditation is to move attention from more activated areas to parts that have no activation at all. Beginning with the sense of balance and cohesion, guidance is provided to sense through the entire body, sustaining a soft attitude with no time frame, a quality of very little effort.

The cultivation of samatha is to be able to direct one’s intentions and attention away from the afflictive activations, settling into a place where they’re not happening. This place of cooling and ceasing is to be lingered in. Here we come out of the personality and into the realm of the miraculous.

In the search for happiness, we generally only experience the search, marked by discomfort or desperation. Relationship is key. The instructions for ānāpānasati train us to develop a more dispassionate relationship where we learn to stand in the presence of, or witness from, the edge of experience. From here the right kind of relationship, marked by non-expectation and non-aversion, can be cultivated.

There is a different way to meet what arises rather than through our conditioned perceptions, one free of self, other people, the future. Place attention on what’s arising directly as it is.

Compulsive problematic activations can be replaced with conscious deliberate ones aimed at liberation. Whether in daily activities or in the action of meditation, we can steady and calm energy by orienting around skillful signs – generosity, service, clarity – until the mind is comforted and no longer flowing down old tracks.

In a field of experience, qualities that are assumed to be other people, entities or myself because of the way they’re stuck together can be seen as specific factors that are pliable and flexible. “Field awareness” means a wider span of attention where suppressed, unnoticed, unresolved energies can arise and be discharged, purifying the bodily field.

We need firm ground to stand on before meeting the difficulties of our lives. Without that firm place, the difficulties don’t unravel –you unravel. With cultivation of the five spiritual faculties – indriyas – they become rock solid, enabling us to stand back from experience and allow it to unravel and pass.

The aggregates themselves are not problematic, it’s our blind, desperate clinging to them that causes suffering. It’s possible for citta to radiate into the aggregates and into our lives. First what’s needed is the act of withdrawing into a place of refuge to collect and gather. Then the act of integration, bringing qualities of calm, kindness, resolve into our spee

Citta takes the five khandhå as truth, placing faith in them to be reliable and satisfying. The Buddha likened them to murderous thieves, not trustworthy. Truth is found in our center, not the peripherals. This is where our liberation potential lies.

Translation of vipassana bhumi chant; clarificiation around sutta passage that asserts that a female could never become a Buddha; why we chant the Refuge Mantra 9 times; questions around working with perception; skillful contemplation of independence; taking pleasure from food; how to recognize and clear blocked energy in the body

The experience of the aggregates doesn’t have to lead to suffering. Addressing the form aggregate of body, Ajahn Sucitto describes ways it teaches us, purifies the heart and mind, and can act as a source of refuge for our long-lasting welfare and benefit.

The Buddha’s instructions for gladdening the mind are not to be skimmed over. Without qualities such as gladness and appreciation we approach practice through the highly conditioned, self-conscious personality. Gladdening must directly touch the citta which cannot be reached through the rational mind or personality. Ajahn suggests accessing citta through imagination and play.

Referring to the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta, The Honeyball, (MN18), Ajahn Sucitto describes a two-fold training to get a handle on and curtail mental proliferation. Citta can be trained through deliberate attention to starve afflictive intentions, and to instead establish pāramī tendencies towards renunciation, clarity and patience.

Is mano essentially the same as citta sankhara;? Is there awareness besides sense consciousness? Clarification between sati/mindfulness and citta. Is mindfulness of body necessary for liberation, why? Difference between circumstances and conditions; how to “eradicate” self-view.

[Citing from AN4:171] The ignorance that underlies volition conditions our ways of perceiving and being. As a result we bring stress and pressure into our bodies, hearts and minds. We train to come out of this by moderating attention and gentle persistence to everyday tasks. Communing with nature is also a resource.

Relationship of tanha to chanda. How to arouse urgency for someone whose sankharas are geared more toward on desire? How to contemplate kamma as an object? How does wholesome “becoming” (bhava) happen?

The inability to feel difficult emotions causes closure of heart and body. If things haven’t been allowed to arise, they don’t pass. Using the practice of calming and insight, we calm just enough to make difficult feeling manageable and let it move through the body, then apply the skill of insight to look into just this experience without proliferation. Dispassion, clarity, and a wide attentive heart remain.

Practicing for release follows the trajectory of knowing (ñāṇa) and culminates in realization (aññā). We review the aggregates with dispassion, recognizing their causal basis, and stop taking them to be self. Devotional practices support the shift from self-consciousness to trackless consciousness where self, other, future, past are no longer concocted. This is the turning towards the deathless.

How does one maintain one’s center in the world? What are the 8 worldly “winds” and how to relate to them? What do we ask forgiveness for from Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha in evening chanting? How to balance energy between personal practice and moral duty to respond to suffering in the world?

Cultivation of the brahmavihāras is based upon generating perceptions and felt senses through various bases. This guided meditation refers to the bodily and mental bases, in addition to primary sympathy – anukampa – as the underlying basis, to bring these boundless qualities into fullness. They then can serve as soothing orientations within the tribulations of this human realm.

Following up from the brahmavihāra guided meditation, the powerful potential of the practice is described. Taken in depth, these qualities offer a means for feeling steady and comfortable, a home base from which to clear fear mistrust and loss of heart.

Time on retreat can be intense, but strength and skills are gained when we can meet the difficulties of our lives. The encouragement is to sustain regular occasions of sitting with the Buddha. Prompts for review and reflection are offered.