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Retreat Dharma Talks

Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat

12-18 February 2020 | Buddhist Retreat Centre | Ixopo, South Africa

One of the principle aims of meditation is to experience greater warm-heartedness – towards others and oneself. The absence of this is a major source of suffering, linked to anxiety, depression and mistrust. On this retreat, we will be cultivating the inner strength that supports and protects the heart so that its natural kindness and compassion can illuminate our lives.

2020-02-12 (7 days) Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa

  
2020-02-12 Firm Center Open Heart 42:52
Ajahn Sucitto
On this retreat, practices for establishing a firm center and open heart will be presented. Openness can be too vulnerable, we need to know what to filter and what to linger in. Precepts offer a firm center of integrity. The body can be a source of steady and calm. We bring to heart and mind that which is beautiful and aspirational to shift agitated energies. These are our refuges.
2020-02-12 4 Basic Postures 34:43
Ajahn Sucitto
An overview of the 4 basic postures for meditation: sitting, standing [14:00], walking [17:05] and reclining [25:45].
2020-02-12 Guided Meditation: Body Sweeping – Staying Open but Focused 23:07
Ajahn Sucitto
In meditation we use the thinking mind minimally, placing greater emphasis on the listening mind. This guided meditation gives practice in lengthening the listening, lingering mind.
2020-02-13 Direct Practice: Sound Opens the Silence 31:31
Ajahn Sucitto
This is an exercise in direct practice, using sound to train the mind. Making a sound from one’s own voice, we use it to lengthen attention over one particular phenomenon rather than jumping onto the next thing. It opens the silence where the mind is poised, listening.
2020-02-13 Deep Attention – Referencing Uplifting Tones 54:09
Ajahn Sucitto
In any cultivation there is a referencing that occurs. In Dhamma practice we refer back to uplifting tones – integrity, respect, appropriateness. These invite skillful qualities to arise making it possible to unseat demons of violence, greed and efficiency.
2020-02-13 Making the Mind Fit 21:13
Ajahn Sucitto
The nature of mind is what you give attention to will grow. We use recollection to generate uplifting tones in the heart, to increase bright energy. This makes the mind fit to meet afflictive patterns and energies.
2020-02-13 Develop a Forcefield of Goodwill 7:36
Ajahn Sucitto
In recollection we use thought more slowly than usual. Capture the meaning and touch the heart. This is a way to reset the heart, making it strong so it doesn’t go into resentment, grudges and other unpleasant states.
2020-02-13 Hold the Heart Steady against the Push of Ill-Will 43:56
Ajahn Sucitto
The general mode is to change the outside world to please the heart, but this can never satisfy. We practice instead to change the heart, to make it strong enough to withstand the push of ill-will. Refuges include the Triple Gem, brahmavihāras, mindfulness of body and precepts.
2020-02-14 Rising Energies and Tonalities 36:15
Ajahn Sucitto
Citta gets shaped into particular forms based on causes and conditions. Over time it can get locked into distorted forms constricting the natural nature of citta which is flexible, bright and expansive. With a mind of unconditional acceptance, energetic patterns can be cleaned and released through body.
2020-02-14 Liberation and Structures 58:35
Ajahn Sucitto
Our personality patterning can be very intense and driven. We’ve got to build in something that holds it back, slows it down, tames it. We use a combination of structures and tonality to create new patterns, ones that keep us from holding on.
2020-02-14 Q&A 1 64:12
Ajahn Sucitto
Physical pain; draining tension through the body; meeting the agitation of being on retreat; dealing with demons and emotional chaos; are liberation practices and goodwill compatible; is goodwill readily available through study and reflection; what thoughts to let pass, what to examine; definition and experience of full knowing; is noting necessary for Vipassana?
2020-02-15 5 Indriya 39:11
Ajahn Sucitto
The mind gets taken over by defective programs causing imbalance. This imbalance is called dukkha. The Buddha introduced a graduated way to shift this imbalance. This process brings up indriya, spiritual faculties. These help to mediate the tendencies of craving and clinging and result in a greater sense of harmony and balance.
2020-02-15 Walking Meditation: Open and Moored to a Firm Center 5:08
Ajahn Sucitto
Practice with keeping the front center of the body open, as if the skin boundary is feeling and reading the movement through space. Mind opens, drops some of its congestion. Thought patterns can be ventilated. Most important is to remain open and moored to a firm center.
In collection: A Moving Balance
2020-02-15 Content and Container 64:41
Ajahn Sucitto
All content needs a container. Content of heart shapes the container of experience. Supportive tones/perceptions are skilful content. They encourage a generous, spacious and cool container that allows tangled mental content to unravel.
2020-02-16 The Causal Field and the Escape from It 54:23
Ajahn Sucitto
All experience is caused by something – it’s conditioned. We act based on these causes and conditions, reinforcing their hold. But there are particular actions that can bring about release from this causal continuum.
2020-02-16 Awareness Has No Boundaries 65:30
Ajahn Sucitto
Meditation is based on the fact that mind can open and encompass the whole world of experience. Gathering energy and awareness into the here and now, and unhooking from the contents of consciousness establishes a very firm center that is also open. The result is unbound awareness.
2020-02-17 Guided Meditation: Sweeping Energy & Space around the Body 35:47
Ajahn Sucitto
It takes time for the bodily energy to unfold upon waking. Don’t go into your mind. Give attention to extending and spreading the body’s energy field. Pay particular attention to the sense of space.
2020-02-17 Addressing the Causal (Energy) Field 65:52
Ajahn Sucitto
Commands and pressure compress energy. The result is the cannonball drive through life – unreceptive, driven and numb. Learn to cultivate energy properly. Go to the body – extend, widen, soften. View the causal field as it is, not as self.
2020-02-17 How I Became a Monk 40:04
Ajahn Sucitto
In response to yogi questions, Ajahn Sucitto recounts how he became a monk.
2020-02-17 Q&A 2 46:06
Ajahn Sucitto
Environmental crisis; addictive patterning; kamma; firm center; fear and pragmatic security.
2020-02-18 Endnotes on Meditation 34:32
Ajahn Sucitto
Cultivation of heart and mind extends beyond sitting on the cushion. This core practice of being in your body is a touchstone for sanity and for happiness. Through this we can discharge qualities that can’t be dealt with in daily life. It can be practiced in any posture. Know where the stress is arising, and meet it with a spacious body and accepting heart.
2020-02-18 Chanting: Buddha’s Words on Lovingkindness 3:16
Ajahn Sucitto
2020-02-18 Meaning and Use of Refuges and Precepts 19:49
Ajahn Sucitto
The end of retreat brings the occasion to recollect our good actions and results. This is both in terms of what we do and what we refrain from. We also take the opportunity to align to refuges and precepts as a reminder to stay awake.
2020-02-18 Staying in Touch with What’s Meaningful 18:42
Ajahn Sucitto
We are encouraged to stay in touch with relationships to values, virtues, that which we hold sacred. Regular recollections of the following are recommended: relationship with the sacred, with one’s body, with other people, with the Earth.
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