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Retreat Dharma Talks

Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat

Reflections on the Satipaṭṭhāna Teachings

2019-07-16 (123 days) Cittaviveka

  
2019-07-16 Asalha Puja – Middle Path 68:28
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-18 Whole Body Handles Feeling 40:36
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-18 Body Trains Mind 48:58
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-20 Mindfulness and Non-Grasping 51:10
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-21 Citta and Non-Grasping 38:30
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-21 Guided Meditation - Receptivity of Mind 47:51
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-22 Cooking Good Dhammas 36:53
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-23 Relevant Mindfulness 40:45
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-29 Transmission of Dhamma to Cittaviveka 43:40
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2019-07-31 Clearing World from the Mind 49:02
Ajahn Sucitto
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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