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Retreat Dharma Talks
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Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
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| Reflections on the Satipaṭṭhāna Teachings |
2019-07-16 (123 days)
Cittaviveka
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2019-07-16
Asalha Puja – Middle Path
68:28
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Ajahn Sucitto
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We can get sidetracked with a focus on mindfulness or stress reduction or meditation techniques. We don’t understand what leads up to them, the Noble 8-Fold Path. This Path begins with right view - knowing the heart and how it’s affected - and right effort - bringing up skillful mindstates.
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2019-07-18
Whole Body Handles Feeling
40:36
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Ajahn Sucitto
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This energy field that carries sensation doesn’t just carry sensations from the physical world, but psychologically-induced experiences as well. This is where the experience of feeling starts to move between the bodily and mental base. If we practice with the feeling base of body, we have a guide for working with mental feeling.
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2019-07-18
Body Trains Mind
48:58
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Body provides a steady reference for mind. Mind by itself runs off and gets lost it thoughts and emotions. Body gives a place from which to review mental phenomena. Simply by paying attention to what’s happening directly in the body, the mode of attention shifts. We can use body to empty mental proliferation.
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2019-07-20
Mindfulness and Non-Grasping
51:10
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The trained mind is fluid and flexible – natural. The untrained mind is fixed and grasping – loses its agility. Training comes through mindfulness of the 4 bases and 3 aspects of mind. Body gives mind something to anchor itself on so the habits of grasping that create a fixed self can be released.
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2019-07-21
Citta and Non-Grasping
38:30
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Ajahn Sucitto
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When the mind is not steady and has gone into activation, clinging is inevitable. The clung-to experience creates the person. But there’s a choice. Our responsibility is to manage the flood of the aggregates through mindfulness.
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2019-07-21
Guided Meditation - Receptivity of Mind
47:51
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Ajahn Sucitto
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In meditation we bring energy to receptivity of the mind. Generally, mind is in active mode. But through listening, sensitizing, and not moving onto the next thing, heart awareness opens more fully.
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2019-07-22
Cooking Good Dhammas
36:53
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Dhammas are things that directly affect citta. They can be awakening factors or hindrances. We train to skillfully handle them, like taming a wild animal. The thinking mind acts as the trainer. Based on citta’s responses, appropriate themes to settle and calm the mind are presented. Citta rewards such sensitivity and responsiveness with pleasure, ease and wisdom.
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2019-07-23
Relevant Mindfulness
40:45
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Mindfulness is the ability to bear things in mind with a steady intention. Like the sides of the hand, there is a hard side with its ability to bar and repel corrupting influences, and a soft side that lingers and takes in the qualities. Select an object of meditation based on what’s needed, and give attention to the careful holding.
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2019-07-29
Transmission of Dhamma to Cittaviveka
43:40
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Reflecting on the beginnings of Cittaviveka, there’s something to recognize beyond just the history. There’s the transmission, what’s happened in mind, heart and spirit. It can be tracked all the way to the Buddha and the first Noble Truth – a sign of inadequacy, suffering, stress and the wish to realize something further than that. A certain nobility of intention came out of that, and is the same thread of continuity that runs through the monastery today.
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2019-07-31
Clearing World from the Mind
49:02
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Ajahn Sucitto
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We look for certainty in things that can ever be certain. Constantly pulled out by the world, we leave the only thing that can ever be certain – citta. Rather than attempt to get away from unpleasant feeling, we can review it, soothe and release some of its tangles. We might find it’s possible to be with discomfort, yet free and deeply secure.
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