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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Retreat Dharma Talks

Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid

In the Buddha’s Dhamma, the four expressions of the loving heart establish the atmosphere for our practice. Combined with the opening and enrichment of the body’s somatic presence, they clear negative patterns such as fear, guilt, self-criticism and resentment. In this retreat, the cultivation of breathing, devotion and wise reflection are offered to further this process.

2021-07-10 (6 days) Cittaviveka

  
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation – It’s Like This Now 18:10
Ajahn Sucitto
Practicing in the upright body, surveying the field, whatever is happening for you, wherever you are, however you are – it’s like this now. Without reacting, denying, fighting or fudging, staying with experience but not in it. That’s the still point. Through that power of this truth, the tide of kamma begins to settle and clarify, and wisdom begins to arise.
2021-07-14 Day 5 Q&A 41:05
Ajahn Sucitto
Accepting my own aging; emptiness; is taking a stance alignment rather than saṇkhāra; how to deal with conflict mindfully; can our practice become self-centered; how to maintain this in daily life; how to repay kamma/transfer merit for accidentally killing animals; struggling to wake up and meditate; how to work with desire for solitude and concern over isolation/loneliness; how to relate to mother who has long term issue of complaining.
2021-07-14 Puja – Being Buddha 40:03
Ajahn Sucitto
The nature of puja is it’s a direct participation in Dhamma. Setting aside what is not needed, boundaries of self and circumstance dissolve and there’s just the upright center, receptive. Surveying the field of kamma from this awakened position gives you a direction, a vantage point from which to navigate your day and your meditation.
2021-07-14 The Gift of Realization 56:06
Ajahn Sucitto
Realization isn’t something you do, it’s something that arises from beyond yourself. When we stop reacting to the stirrings of our kammic field, stop creating a self, awareness can lift and witness – this is suffering, this is its origin, this is how it ceases. As we begin to wear out these distorted psychologies that make up the self, qualities of happiness, freedom, joy and love become available as a gift.
2021-07-14 Day 5 Q&A 52:15
Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Difference between wise caution and anxious reaction; use of psychiatric medicines; please condense teachings and instructions for practice; cultivating relationship with gods/celestial beings; commitment to waking up entangled with wanting and striving; transitions in place, experience and practice.
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation – Fine Tuning the Postures 5:46
Ajahn Sucitto
Advice for specific sāti helpful in each posture. Establishing ground, steadiness and center while keeping awareness wide, allow dhammas to swim by, letting them all go. A certain strengthening effect comes from that.
2021-07-14 Upright in the 4 Noble Truths 29:51
Willa Thaniya Reid
If we come back to the primary frame of this teaching, the work is to understand how this heart gets agitated, to see how suffering arises. If we are upright, if we have this sense of goodness and connectedness, there’s a capacity to meet the difficulties rather than struggle with it. Grounded in this strength, remain available to what’s happening here.
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation - The capacity to be here 9:00
Willa Thaniya Reid
Taking care with what we connect with, with that which supports our capacity to be here – grounded, present, receptive. Guard from anything that takes us away from the fullness of citta. In this place we keep meeting whatever is arising with qualities of friendliness and welcome, everything belongs. From that place of welcome, response happens. Love meets love.
2021-07-14 Open Practice 30 min with bell 30:21
Willa Thaniya Reid
2021-07-15 Puja – A Daily Door to the Sacred 16:32
Ajahn Sucitto
The occasion of puja provides a useful link between our inner realities and outer circumstances. As we chant and make offerings, we’re open and receptive to the virtue, values, insights of our depth experience. The body picks up these signs as deep tissue memories, making these qualities available to enrich what we do in the external world.
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