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The greatest gift is the gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
2009-07-16
Growing a True Face
24:19
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Ajahn Sucitto
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A lot of practice is about working with difficult mind states, emotional currents, and personality patterns. With the establishment of basic ground, we bring together a unified Dhamma body that holds us steady. It gives us a reference point, a presence, that drains power out of the hindrances and allows us to meet difficulties that arise.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-14
Natural Mind - Strength, Warmth, Clarity
29:34
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Ajahn Sucitto
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With mindfulness there’s a deepening into mind. When established you feel the flow of natural responses. Mindfulness places us back into these fundamental qualities of basic strength, basic warmth, basic clarity. The practise is staying with that, letting confused restless energies settle into that. That’s where samadhi can arise.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-13
Five Faculties - Indriya
22:07
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The indriya (faith, energy, mindfulness, collectedness, discernment), sometimes called the governing faculties, are capacities we already have and operate through in some rudimentary form. This teaching gives a description each, and how they can be developed to become supportive faculties. When they come together, they merge in the deathless.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-12
Guide Meditation on Breathing
46:45
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Keep in mind, attention is on breathing rather than a breath – a process, not a specific thing. Making use of vitakka-vicara, linger and pick up the quality of breath-energy as it moves through. Hold the form, keep the inquiry, remain in the present moment. What is the breathing now?
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-12
Lawless Order
23:57
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Ajahn Sucitto
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There are certain inclinations we have as human beings. These boil down to the indriya – dominating faculties – of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. They can go wrong, become sources of suffering if they’re not balanced through awareness. Various examples of how they manifest, and how to keep them in harmony are given.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-11
Having Fun (Skillfully)
36:40
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The experience of having fun, enjoyment, is an energy. The problem comes when we locate it externally, then attach to it, self-orient around it. A skilful person knows how to cultivate pleasure in themselves. Practise with meditation. Find out what blocks it and what encourages it. The Buddha taught pleasure as a way to awakening.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-11
Walk Back to Center
18:31
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Ajahn Sucitto
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In whatever activity we engage in, meditation through the postures is a matter of returning to presence – to that awareness which can know. With walking, don’t do the walking, meditate the walking. Maintain a core presence that doesn’t participate and doesn’t shut anything out. Meet everything with openness and alertness, like a mother welcoming her children.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-09
Opening the Door
16:43
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Encouragement to make an effort with the retreat form. Give particular attention to posture. To clean and purify you have to open up the house, open up the body. Open up the world, the doors to heaven and hell. Whatever comes through, keep the door open, let the energies blow through. Body is where we can break the cycle of samsara.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-07-07
How Real is the Real World - Asalha Puja
54:33
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Ajahn Sucitto
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The so-called real world is concocted from our fears, beliefs, obsessions. All of which are changeable and conditioned. There is a real that the Buddha spoke of: he called it the peaceful, the sublime, the unbounded. It’s not located in time and space, but it’s experienceable. Form and function, when appropriately considered and applied, can serve as our vehicle to the real.
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Cittaviveka
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Vassa Retreat
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2009-06-27
Service as a Path of Practice
45:25
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Donald Rothberg
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How do we take our service as a path of practice? Most basically, we take helping others as the center (or a major part) of our lives, and we examine, in our service, what helps develop “selfless” service and the barriers to such service, especially a sense of duality between self and other. We explore how a connection between “inner” and “outer” practice structures a life of service, and how such practice can also be understood as the development of particular qualities—we focus on the development of (1) clarity of intentions, (2) generosity, (3) gratitude, and (4) compassion, and on some of the challenges that arise when cultivating such qualities, and in service generally.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Volunteer Appreciation
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2009-06-23
The Awakening Prophet
63:39
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Donald Rothberg
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One interpretation of Jewish mindfulness connects mindfulness with the Jewish prophetic tradition. This suggests an understanding of spiritual practice as involving both "inner" transformation toward liberation and "outer" transformation toward a liberated society; actually, the two are intimately connected. We first explore, partly through music, the prophetic tradition. We then examine how both our inner and outer practice can be understood in similar ways, following the core principles, in terms of development in wisdom and mindfulness (the mind), compassion and love (the heart), and courage and skillful action (the body).
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Jewish Mindfulness
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2009-06-19
Opinions
33:20
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Ayya Medhanandi
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Are you watching your breath or watching your opinions? It is not enough to just watch the breath; you must reflect closely on what is arising. Come to the truth of the way things are by identifying and letting go of your opinions. Reflect on what you pay homage to and how to give birth to the truth in your heart.
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Ottawa Buddhist Society
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