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Dharma Talks
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2021-08-10
No obligation
40:25
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Time boundaries, pressure and obligation, create a frame within which the citta becomes compressed. We become a driven or burdened person. What is lacking is internal stability and openness. Stand back from all that and bring a gesture of goodwill to the constricted places. You then have your stable open presence to offer.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-09
Guided Meditation – Breathing
52:29
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The aim of mindfulness of breathing is to steady, refresh and bless the mind. When the heart becomes clean and happy, it naturally widens and sends out good energies and actions into the world. So when you cultivate through heart, you benefit both your own mind and the lives of others.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-09
Q&A
46:38
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Ajahn Sucitto
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O1:06 Q1 How should one prepare the body and mind for sleep. 07:27 Q2 Could you explain again what is meant by the axis and the heart line. 20:44 Q3 If I go to crowded places, when I get home I feel sad and sometimes even suicidal from all negative energies. How can one protect oneself from this? 24:47 Q4 How can we get beyond the habits of the mind? 27:29 Q5 I think you said that “known” is a feeling. I am confused. 33:08 Q6 Most jobs have to do with the exploitation of the environment in some way and even healing professions are contaminated with the exchange of money. Can you offer some comments? 41:01 Q7 I have a chance to get a new job. I feel excitement but also see I will have less time to meditate and care for my elderly Mum. 43:49 Q8 My son has cut himself and my grandchildren off from me and I feel my heart has turned to stone.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-09
Walking through your identity
8:27
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Ajahn Sucitto
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In walking meditation, move through the identifiable world. Feel its resonances and triggerings and keep walking, see them as changing flickering phenomena. Maintain a steadiness as you walk through your world – it’s not actually yours, it’s always going its own way.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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In
collection:
A Moving Balance
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2021-08-09
No person, no problem
33:11
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Citta’s tendency is to grasp onto phenomena, seeking stability in the ever-changing nature of things. Citta can also respond to phenomena with mindfulness — an open attention that allows things to do what they do and move through. When the constant seeking abates, a pleasant abiding place remains. This is where true stability is found.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-09
Guided Meditation - Samadhi is harmony
29:47
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Ajahn Sucitto
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When we establish steadiness of body, citta returns to being embodied because that’s its home base. With steadiness and comfort, pressure is released in both body and heart. Cultivate like this and the self-referencing can disappear; then there’s just witnessing. When body and heart are held together in harmony – this is samādhi.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-09
Well-being is the shape of heart
43:03
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The heart takes shape based on certain activations. We can train to avoid certain intentions and actions that make for either a shaky insecure heartone or one stuck with pain. A wise person concerned for their welfare cultivates a citta that is open, spacious, not hankering, not resisting. We begin to reset how our world feels and how we feel about ourselves. This is our treasure.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Guided Meditation - Awareness spread over the body-mind field
47:45
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Many things arise in the field of awareness. It’s all energies moving – some bodily, some emotional, some conceptual. Spread awareness over all of it equally, without grasping or repelling. Every detail is to be included into the whole, like a mosaic. There’s no person separate from this, there’s just this and awareness of it. May it be well.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Standing Meditation – Whole Body Vitality
26:56
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Begin with a bit of movement and loosening so energy can flow freely. Once movement stops, sense into subtler aspects of bodily experience – where is there stability, space, connection. A lightness, even playfulness, is encouraged in meditation. Enjoy.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Q&A
49:41
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 – A comment about personal experience of alignment – lateral and vertical and Ajahn’s response; Q2 18:32 Can you provide more guidance on the use of space. Q3 21:15 I am dealing with a very volatile situation with severe conflict and stress. How can I deal with it mid-way between expressing my emotions and suppressing them? Q4 28:24 When I feel my body and heart are stable is that a good moment to bring up a problem of concern for me? Q5 28:59 Someone has been asking for my help, rather too much and too often and I find the pressure difficult. How can I handle this?Q6 31:33 You mentioned meditating with eyes open but not seeing. This is challenging for me. How does that happen? Q7 35:02 I feel a band of tightness at the back of the head and behind the ears. What might I do? Q8 38:12 In my family we have a history of Alzheimer’s. Do you think heart wisdom is noble when dementia is present? How might practice be a support in the face of any decline of cognitive functioning? Q9 40:49 They say one in four women and men in Ireland have experienced some form of childhood sexual abuse. How might people practise with this in their background?
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Using embodied intelligence
7:46
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Practice with sustaining open space for phenomena to arise and move within. Sensitive to what’s going on, but not contracting around it, body remains spacious and open. It’s possible to experience sense contact without intrusion, remaining internally clear, free from congestion.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Embodied intelligence
25:17
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Ajahn Sucitto
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We are familiar with conceptual intelligence, but body and heart intelligence need to be trained. These do not interpret or think about phenomena, but experience it directly – feeling, sensing, responding. Exploring things as phenomenal rather than as myself, there’s no need to understand them; instead let them pass with dispassionate, open stability.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Balance internal and external
2:56
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Use the experience of deepening attention in your practice, to really see what’s around you. You can practice mindfulness when you move around off the cushion. Often we live in the cocoon of an assumed environment that is not really what’s there. Take a fresh look. Pay attention.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Open into the given
27:58
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Mindfulness is the heart's awareness. It can help us be embodied,present, and show up for life. The embodied sense is warm, cohesive and is sustained through the rhythmic flow of breathing. The sense of ‘I am’ sits in the center of that embodied sensitivity. This sense is a given and cannot be created; but mostly its ignored because we're too busy ‘doing’ to receive it.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-08
Little me and the sabotage
48:21
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Ajahn Sucitto
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We live at the meeting point of perceptions and impressions with their reactions and cannot stop suffering until we see beyond that domain. Stability and the awareness of the ever-changing nature of experience are both essential. From this perspective we see how the pressure to be harmonious with others captures the heart. This is a form of sabotage; it creates inner conflict, and a person – little me – who is never happy. When there is conflict, it’s important to find common ground with others, prior to negotiating the details.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-07
Love is not a reward
49:34
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Ajahn Sucitto
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When we give the citta our attention, there is a possibility for it to offer its four treasures - kindness, compassion, appreciative gladness, equanimity. These treasures are a virtual immune system, protecting one from the hostilities in the world. They free us from seeking adoration from others as well as comparing ourselves to and competing with others. Whereas a narrow form of love is used as a social training and diminishes healthy acceptance and self view, authentic love is a natural and shared medium for mutuality-based life.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-07
Q&A
47:26
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1- How to deal with strong floods of sankhāra, in dealing with my role and identity as a Mother. Q2 – Are the qualities of the heart conditioned in the same way as intellectual abilities or physical strength. Q3 – I have a 17 year old dying cat. She suffers a lot and rejects the comforting medicine of the vet. Is this cat wisdom? Q4 What would be a sequence for a daily meditation practice? Q5 Are dharma and dhamma the same? Q6 Can we use the 5 indriyas to solve the 5 hindrances? Q7 How to deal with a band of pain around the back. Q8 Healthy attachment is important for example in childhood development. How do we know if it is OK to have an attachment or not.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-07
Guided Meditation - Standing 2
23:23
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Ajahn Sucitto
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In some ways we don’t do very much in standing meditation. We use the body to adjust the body energy rather than the mind with the heart gently enquiring: “How is this now?” With the whole body in focus we can experience the body’s natural intelligence.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-07
Balancing indriya (36:59)
36:56
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The search for stability and happiness is a reasonable one, it’s just generally pointed in the wrong direction. We overlook our own center as the source for non-suffering. Proper cultivation of the 5 indriya culminate in such a state. Their potency is not so much in each individual quality, but in how they blend – both balancing and enriching each other.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-07
Meditation heart, body and mind co-operating
28:00
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The qualities of heart, body and intellect can come together in mutual support. Upright steady body; comfortable heart that’s not straining; mind listening, acting as a coach. This is entering into proper relationship – you can get great strength from just this.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-06
Reflection on goodwill
11:18
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Acknowledge the capacity and willingness we have as humans for goodwill – and the horrific capacity we have for ill will. We use our practice to turn our attention towards goodwill and to exercise our ability to notice and generate heart energies. Metta allows us to put aside harmful energies and thoughts and to be grateful for the expanded state of mind that it brings. Equanimity means staying emotionally present regardless of our reaction to experience. We avoid perfectionist tendencies and ideas about what we should or should not do and maintain a generous heart.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-06
Guided standing meditation
45:13
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Notice that the body knows how to stand, how to balance, by itself - with no mental effort. Enjoy your feet as the chief of the management team and spread your attention to other members of the team.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-06
Q& A On effort and relaxation
34:48
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:41 Q1 I have trouble relaxing with my meditation. Samadhi seems more available when I sit on the couch with a cup of tea. What can you suggest? 16:47 Q2 Receiving or attuning to what is given can be tricky due to our family and social conditioning. How do we deal with this conditioning? 24:15 Q3 When I sit or walk my body sucks in the air and holds it for maybe 5 seconds. Should I just observe this or is my practice misguided?
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-06
Moving out of meditation
6:22
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Ajahn Sucitto
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A practice of lingering and noticing what has passed has an open and steadying effect. This is an aspect of mindfulness: to not rush onto the next thing but notice what’s there. This is where samadhi arises. Give yourself a set period of time while meditating, then make the movement out of meditation free and aimless.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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2021-08-06
The guardians of open stability
48:57
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The basis of citta (heart-awareness) can be touched by using the thought “it’s like this now”. We can rely on the 5 indriyas to be as allies and guardians; they protect us from reactivity and from running away from our authentic heart.
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Sunyata Buddhist Centre
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Open Stability
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