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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2024-07-17
From Head to Heart
61:59
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Tara Brach
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If we are suffering, we are believing an interpretation of reality that is limiting and untrue. At these times we are imprisoned in a painful looping of fear-driven thoughts and feelings. This talk explores the ways our practices of mindfulness, compassion and loving presence can guide us from addictive thinking to perceiving life with a wise heart.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-07-03
Embodied Presence (Part 1) – Planting Our Roots in the Universe
51:11
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Tara Brach
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In describing our human predicament and dis-ease, D.H. Lawrence says we are like a great tree with our roots in the air. We need to replant ourselves—in our bodies, hearts and spirit. These two talks are guides to replanting ourselves. In Part 1, we explore how we are so often dissociated from the life of our body, and the pathways home. Part 2 looks at the challenges of pain, fear and trauma, and how we can gradually and skillfully reconnect with a wholeness of being.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-07-03
Metta and the Hindrances
40:04
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Shaila Catherine
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Shaila Catherine describes how the wholesome state of mettā serves not only as an antidote to anger, fear, and ill will, but is also a force that can overcome all the hindrances. A mind imbued with mettā is both strong and yielding; it is balanced and upright. Mettā contributes to both the development of samādhi and also insight. A mind strengthened by mettā will be able to face the unsatisfactory conditions of dukkha with clarity and balance, without blaming society, and without getting angry at other people. Mettā training gives us a way to take responsibility for cultivating happiness. When our minds are well developed, we will dwell at ease, in comfort, free from the hindrances, primed for abandoning lust, hate, and delusion.
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge
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Forest Refuge -July 2024
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2024-06-30
The Art of Harmlessness
22:58
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Ayya Medhanandi
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We humans share this journey of birth, old age, sickness and death. Sometimes we succumb to fear or sorrow; sometimes we are exhausted or disoriented as if lost on a perilous path. Seeing this universality of suffering and knowing its causes, we ask: "What will set us free?" With the lens of refined moral aptitude, in silent witness, we stop to listen and directly know for ourselves the inner joy and peace of true harmlessness. Patiently, our noble guides of benevolent compassion and wise reflection steer the heart to its liberation – awakening to Unconditional Love.
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Sati Saraniya Hermitage
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2024-06-01
Q&A
51:25
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1: You seem to be talking about citta as a persisting permanent thing not as arising every split second. Any comments? 11:34 Q2: How can I deal with not fully maintaining Buddhist standards after the retreat? 17:27 Q3: You said: Keep warming what can be warmed and the things that can't release yet ... it's not ready. Could you elaborate more on this please? 24:08 Q4: You wrote a book called Unseating the Inner Tyrant. The critic consumes a lot of energy. How do you restore that energy after a rage? Is there a shorter path to finding balance? 32:59 Q5: There's a lot of fear in my citta. How come? 34:46 Q6: I was afraid of coming to this retreat, and now I'm afraid of going out. 38:16 Q7: What is the relationship between tanha, craving, as the fundamental cause of dukkha and the three root kelasa, defilements, based on the scriptures and or their experience for interpretation? 47:51 Q 8: What is the effect of serious illness physical and psychological on the citta? Can they limit or make it impossible to take care of the citta?
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Meditationszentrum Beatenberg
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Exploring Animate Reality
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2024-05-31
Q&A
56:21
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Q1 If I remember it well citta follows moving, shifting energy. How can we feel moving energy? Is it the feeling of the breath or sound? What is non-moving energy?
08:37 Q2 what's the difference between virya, translated as energy, and citta energy?
12:12 Q3 You don't seem to use the word awareness which is often used to denote the knowing of something. Is there a connection between the felt energy and awareness?
28:28 Q4 How do you reconcile the fire of an animated heart with Buddhism's perfume of disengagement and dispassion?
32:36 Q5 how can sensation and the sequence that leads to it be described in a subtle energy approach?
43:43 Q6 What's the difference between vedana and emotion?
44:48 Q7 Sadness, sorrow, fear, joy. Are the emotions or more fixed states?
49:20 Q8 Observing the breath seems quite important, but as soon as I focus on the breath it gets forced and heavy. Do you have any advice on observing the natural breath without interfering?
52:17 Q9 What does it mean when you say the breathing is a messenger? What is the message?
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Meditationszentrum Beatenberg
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Exploring Animate Reality
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2024-05-12
The Buddha's Promise
23:39
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Ayya Medhanandi
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The human realm is ever fraught with greed and delusion, conflicted and loud in its extremes. These violations are just that – destroyers of our spiritual verve. As pilgrims of peace, we disarm them in the interior silence of the heart. Courageous, we stand our moral ground, resolved to hold the bar. Our faith, generosity and discernment rescue us from the flames of sensory fears and infatuations. There is giving up and letting go but the Buddha’s promise is true. Where kindness and compassion prevail, the heart knows unshakeable peace.
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Sati Saraniya Hermitage
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2024-05-05
Selfie of the Mind
25:48
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Are we present here and now? How much do we obsess in thought? Is the mind filled with worry – wavering from anxiety to fear? Here and now, we examine and ascend to peaceful states. When we’re dreaming, wake up. Know that we’re asleep. Know that we’re not present. Know the mind that is upset, angry or boiling and cool it. Use the Buddha’s tools to repair and return our attention to present moment awareness. Mindfully knowing, seeing clearly with blameless joy and wise insight, we lighten our burden. We are cultivating the garden of the mind.
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Toronto Theravada Buddhist Community (TBC)
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2024-05-01
Homecoming to Loving Awareness (retreat talk)
59:36
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Tara Brach
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We have strong conditioning to identify as a separate self, and to feel all the fears and attachments that arise from not realizing our true belonging. This talk includes teachings and several experiential reflections that help us wake up from the trance of separation.
As we grow familiar with the awareness and love that is our shared true nature, we naturally live from that loving, and experience a growing freedom and joy. [Spring Retreat, April 2024 – Art of Living Retreat Center]
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-04-10
The Sacred Art of Listening
53:31
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Tara Brach
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Just as presence is the heart of meditation, so deep listening is at the center of all conscious, loving relationships. This talk explores how our wants and fears block listening, ways we can deepen our capacity for listening, and the healing that unfolds when we truly feel heard by another.
What happens when you’re really listening?
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-04-08
Freedom from Fear
53:07
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Bhavana, cultivation, is associated with bringing into being fruitful states and dwelling in them. Without this ground, citta- heart - goes out, focuses on conditioned phenomena. The natural result will be uncertainty, anxiety, fear. Practices for clearing fear at its root are described: contemplation of death, mindfulness of body and breathing, generosity, virtue.
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Amaravati Monastery
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2024-04-05
Like the Sun Awakening the Lotus
32:20
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Throughout history, hatred, human violence and horrific sufferings have plagued the world. Truth is never diminished by these worldly conditions. So we feed the mind with what supports inner peace and awakening and not with thoughts of depression, disappointment, despair, or fear. What we most fear is unconditional love. That's not consent for nor approval of hateful conduct but rather a call to bear compassion – the most difficult love of all. Like the sun that gives warmth to all beings, the awakened mind does not differentiate. It does not choose one over another. It just gives light
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Sati Saraniya Hermitage
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2024-03-27
Meditation: Widening Rings of Being – Awakening the Senses
20:01
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Tara Brach
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If we can recognize thoughts as thoughts, it becomes possible to open from virtual to living reality. This meditation guides us in awakening the senses and discovering the freedom – the awake space of Being that is beyond the confines of thoughts.
“Relaxing back into the space between thoughts. Relaxing with what’s right here…”
The poet Rumi writes, “Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking, live in silence, flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-12-20
The Dharma in Times of Crisis
1:20:00
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Donald Rothberg,
Stephen Fulder
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Stephen Fulder, the founder and senior teacher of Tovana (the Israel Insight Society), is in conversation with Donald Rothberg. We hold the understanding of "crisis" broadly, remembering that we are in the midst of multiple crises, while giving more attention to Israel/Palestine. Such crises are a major challenge to our dharma practice. In this context, we explore a number of different themes, including bringing our practice to difficult experiences that often arise in a crisis, such as fear, emotional pain, reactivity, numbness, and the presence of repetitive negative narratives and views. We also identify, during the conversation, a number of resources, including qualities of compassion, empathy, equanimity, and the importance of finding a "refuge"and deep support in different ways. The conversation is followed by discussion, and a closing guided meditation.
[During the conversation, we see a short (3:28) video of Tovana teachers speaking a sentence each about the current crisis, in Hebrew, with English sub-titles. The video can be seen at https://youtu.be/NqKoCm2TMhA?feature=shared.]
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2023-12-17
On A Path We Trust
30:25
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Let us not serve the false, fierce tyranny of fear – withering, unworthy, not to be clung to, and not who we are. By emptying the mind of fearful thoughts, we stop clinging to anything of the world – one moment at a time. Tasting the joy of true freedom, we enter that dimension of transcendence, beyond the prison of grasping a self and all its adornments. For there is no 'one' to be afraid, no ‘one’ who dies, and no ‘one’ to awaken. But there is waking up as we let go into the peace of selfless awareness.
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Toronto Theravada Buddhist Community (TBC)
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2023-12-17
A Jet Plane To Nibbana
23:04
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Across millenia, the Buddha speaks of his awakening – teaching us how to take refuge, how to be fearless, how to walk the Middle Way, how to understand suffering, and how to know what to trust. Fear is the opposite of trust. So be willing to relinquish concepts and questions and let yourself live into the answers day by day where fear can end – there in the pure sanctuary of the heart. For this, we learn to have compassion even for those who kill us. But we must give up what is not trustworthy. With courage, compassion, and clear awareness of what we face now, stay quietly present and listen carefully. The truth will speak, and we shall understand.
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Sati Saraniya Hermitage
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2023-11-18
Give Peace A Chance
18:29
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Ayya Medhanandi
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With selfless awareness, we practise good-will, radiating loving-kindness inwardly and to all beings, even to those who are indifferent or hostile, or to those who cause harm. This is the Buddha's instruction to us in the Metta Sutta. Can we unequivocally wish all beings freedom from harm? Can we forgive enough to convert thoughts of fear, anger or enmity into benevolence? It takes courage to enter a dark space without a light. So we try as much as we can because unconditional compassion and kindness in this world give peace, healing and reconciliation a chance.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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2023-11-15
Becoming Happier: A Conversation with Tara Brach and Arthur Brooks
1:18:52
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Tara Brach
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The Dalai Lama regularly says that everyone wants to be happy, nobody wants to suffer. Arthur Brooks, in his new book on getting happier (co-authored with Oprah Winfrey) digs into the practical and science-based approaches that increase deep wellbeing. In this conversation Tara and Arthur discuss the ingredients of happiness, the role of unhappiness in our lives, how to work with core ego-fears, the power of metacognition, the necessity of transcendence of small self and the love that is the grounds of true happiness.
Learn more about Arthur’s work & pick up a copy of his new book, Build the Life You Want at: https://arthurbrooks.com.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-10-25
What is our Refuge in the Midst of Crisis? A Conversation with Tara and Stephen Fulder
55:23
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Tara Brach,
Stephen Fulder
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Stephen Fulder is a senior Buddhist teacher, author and peace activist who lives and teaches in Israel. In this conversation Stephen shares about his experience during the unfolding violence in the Middle East, and what he and his community are doing to tend to the huge trauma people are feeling.
He talks about being with intense fear and emotions, and how to talk with those who have very different views. And he shares about the past decades of the deep and powerful work he’s been involved in, bringing groups of Israeli and Palestinian people together to find their shared hearts and humanity. Together Stephen and Tara look at what our true refuge is in the midst of a world in crisis and pathways that can carry us to that precious space of equanimity, compassion and love.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-08-09
Part 2: Rewiring for Happiness and Freedom
52:52
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Tara Brach
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The Buddha said, “I would not be teaching this (a path of awakening) if genuine happiness and freedom were not possible.” While this is our potential, we each have deep conditioning to get stuck in feelings of fear, deficiency and separation from others. These talks explore the two interdependent pathways of undoing the conditioning that blocks our potential. In Part I we will look at how we can intentionally arouse states of well-being, and with practice, develop them into ongoing traits that bring presence and joy to our lives. In Part II, we will investigate how to cultivate an unconditional presence, and the radical acceptance and love, that are the grounds of true happiness and inner freedom.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-08-02
Part 1: Rewiring for Happiness and Freedom
52:55
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Tara Brach
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The Buddha said, “I would not be teaching this (a path of awakening) if genuine happiness and freedom were not possible.” While this is our potential, we each have deep conditioning to get stuck in feelings of fear, deficiency and separation from others. These talks explore the two interdependent pathways of undoing the conditioning that blocks our potential. In Part I we will look at how we can intentionally arouse states of wellbeing, and with practice, develop them into ongoing traits that bring presence and joy to our lives. In Part II, we will investigate how to cultivate an unconditional presence, and the radical acceptance and love, that are the grounds of true happiness and inner freedom.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2023-07-19
Q&A
41:31
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Ajahn Sucitto,
Laura Bridgman
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Questions are précised; one live question (Q3) was précised and read into the file: 00:08 Q1 Could you say a few words about dealing with traumatic memories or body memories. 13:47 Q2 I fear that I am not able to connect with non-self. Can you say more about non-self. 20:27 Q3 When I was sitting my timer went off and there was a vague voice that was encouraging and reassuring me that whatever issues I face can be resolved. I find this very exciting. What do you think is happening here?28:34 Q4 If a part of our being nature gets accessed by a higher paced energy, can sati and a slower mode of being lead to loosing access to sides of our being?
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Gaia House
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Unrestricted Awareness
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2023-06-22
Mindfulness Tool Kit for Working with Difficult Emotions (Retreat at Spirit Rock)
58:43
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Diana Winston
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In this talk we explore the core tools that we can use when we are struggling with difficult emotions, whether on retreat or in daily life. These tools are Mindfulness (of course): we learn how to be present with our emotions, practice RAIN, and meet our difficult thoughts and emotions with a fearless heart. The second tool is Wisdom: how can we "enlist the wisdom mind" to help us when we are lost in a challenging emotion.The third is Love: how we bring self-compassion and kindness to ourselves and our difficulties when we most need it. Lastly, Awareness Itself: Recognize the part of us that is stable, free, and luminous even in the midst of difficult emotions. Includes real-life examples.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Mindfulness For Everyone
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2023-06-22
Q&A
41:36
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Questions précised - 00:16 Q1 Is it possible to start waking up and still have a mind that is clinging or fixating at times? What are the characteristics of awakening? 14:27 Q2 Sometimes there are moments where everything is gone or stops, with no thoughts or awareness f an outside world. Time seems to be gone as well. Can you say something about this?16:21 Q3 It seems the heart needs to be allowed to know itself. When with family and partner there seems to be no possibility for this. This is desperately uncomfortable which doesn’t resolve and is filled with fear. Can you offer some guidance. 22:54 Q4(a) I feel parts of the body frozen in anxiety. Spacious awareness and reclining help. What else would help? Patience? (b) I get feelings of joy, gratitude then contentment. When contentment arises I feel the desire to move on rather than stay with it. What can I do about this? (c) What can I do if the energy flow gets overwhelming say with sickness? 34:46 Q5 What would you say to a teenager who seems to have ill will in the family? 36:44 Q6 No matter how good meditation is in the previous evening, there will come sleep and with it the end of awareness. Next morning we have to start again.
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Moulin de Chaves
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Regaining the Centre
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2023-06-21
Q&A
42:28
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Questions précised - 00:06 Q1 A lot is said about ‘moving away from’. Could you also say something about moving towards? 15:31 Q2 When I have pain while sitting I usually practice with the pain until I feel there may be a risk to my health, for example by restricting blood flow in the leg for too long. Any ideas on this please? 17:23 Q3 Regarding sleepiness while witting, I discovered that by surrendering to it my body deeply rests and then the mind is bright again. Any comments please? 21:52 Q4 Meditation doesn’t allow me to gather energy but actually dissipates it. Why does this happen? 30:53 Q5 I live in a country where’s there’s a lot of suffering and misery and this often throws me into a state between empathy and impotence. What can you advise please? Q6 34:40 I live in the midst of great fear, witnessing emotional hostility. Where do actions and decisions and wise reflection play a part in helping but if I do too much the thinking mind goes astray. What is your advice please? 37:31 Q7 How does one we free oneself from jealousy and comparison? 40:12 Q8 How can we help others who are suffering but believe they are happy?
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Moulin de Chaves
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Regaining the Centre
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2023-05-19
A Bow To Silence
33:28
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Ayya Medhanandi
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The spiritual path may be exceedingly long and demands nothing less than the most supreme culminating effort. But our patience and faith are radical. In every moment of pure attention, insight into impermanence and awareness of Truth shatter our delusion. Though monstrous dangers and fears assail us, we sever the shackles of worldly views and attachments with the sword of wisdom – courageous to the last frontier of illumination, Nibbana itself.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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