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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2021-05-11
Converting Difficulty into Skilful States
61:12
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| Cultivation, bhavana, can be described as the desire to bring forth skilful qualities. It’s an eager, inspired willingness to receive every situation that arises, and know what is needed to turn it into a skilful state. The old historical person begins to fade out, transformed by the deepened and strengthened resolve of the heart. |
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Cittaviveka
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2021-05-11
Practical Dharma
42:19
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Lila Kate Wheeler
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| The Buddha’s teachings are often compared to a finger pointing to the moon. Without that finger, we might never lift our gaze and see for ourselves. Tonight’s talk offers encouragement to stay present and awake as a lived experience so that we can lead a more centered, caring, ethical life. As Dharma practitioners, we make efforts to be more present for the experiences in ourselves and others. As we do so we’ll surely hear and see things we didn’t expect or want. Here, the teaching of the five hindrances supports us to shift our gaze yet again, recognize more clearly and respond differently when wisdom and caring are weakened. With these skills, we will know for sure there is no bad habit or difficult situation that cannot be softened and worked with—even liberated. |
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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Tuesday Talks
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2021-05-02
Noble Birth
14:11
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| With the recognition of the ending of this session, consider birth: what we’ve been through is receding, nothing new yet has begun, and we’re not going back to the same old thing. Birth is arising into that which we’re not yet entirely clear about. Nourish the potency of arising with mental qualities of goodwill, compassion, celebration and equanimity. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-02
Embodying Mettā: A Daylong Retreat
3:34:42
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Dawn Mauricio
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| Those who are familiar with the practice of mettā, or lovingkindness, know that it is one of four divine abidings of the heart according to the Buddha’s teachings. One way that this quality can be cultivated—as traditionally and so frequently taught—is through the recitation of phrases. However, without a deeper understanding or familiarity with the subtle expressions of mettā, or the alternate doorways into cultivating this profound and limitless quality, lovingkindness meditation can mislead us to binary thinking, as in: "I am loving and kind” or “I am not loving and kind."
In our daylong together, we will explore the various doorways into cultivating mettā, as well as the spectrum in which it can come alive in our daily lives. All levels and experiences welcome. |
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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2021-05-02
Q&A2
45:41
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| Where is the experience of bodily energies found in the suttas; what is the source of Ajahn’s ‘forensic precision’; how to us somatic presence with the 3rd and 4th foundations of mindfulness; please help with insomnia; experiencing resistance to standing meditation; grief and pain experienced with ‘Future and Past’ exercise; how to deepen into the ‘neither/nor’ space; is samādhi developed by sustaining sati; how to deal with overactive citta; how did you deal with the fear of death when being robbed in India? |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-02
Walking Meditation – Walking Through the Mind
4:52
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| In walking, experience the fluidities and exchanges of movement. Walk through the sense realm, noticing how objects change. Walk through your mental field in the same way, the wallpaper changing as you move along. Notes on reclining meditation conclude these instructions. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-02
Open Mind Open Heart Open Body
24:50
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| Open mind and open heart require open receptivity – listening without taking on, accepting without adopting. This requires the quiet power of embodiment – acknowledgement – which isn’t doing anything other than acknowledging. Things then shift and pass on their own. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-02
Standing Meditation – Open Energy
34:00
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| The standing posture provides a simple process whereby energies can be balanced, soothed and steadied. Opening channels of the body so breathing can flow through, an open energy – light, spacious, repelling obstruction – becomes available. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-02
Precepts and Resolution
26:23
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| It’s very helpful to start the day with resolution: What can I say no to? What can I say yes to? Using the precepts as a frame, generate boundaries that will moderate energies and help you remain firm and grounded in the face of the floods. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-01
Q&A1
47:28
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| Help with hard-wired anger; how to think about ground, space and rhythm in a non-conceptual way; citta seems like a toddler; how to disengage from deep patterns of negativity; how to respond to boredom; is it recommended to thoroughly achieve samatha before moving on to vipassana; how to respond to deep pain in the heart; question about impermanence. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-05-01
Introduction – Establishing Wise Deep Attention
19:14
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| The floods of sense consciousness and delusion take us away from a place where we might feel stable, assured, comfortable. We experience a loss of autonomy and receptivity. We can use the quality of wise deep attention (yoniso manasikāra) to turn attention to the source of our actions and our being. The roots are found in the domain of body and mind. |
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London Insight
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Clearing the Floods
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2021-04-26
The True Good Person (Sappurisa)
56:22
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| The good person is considered to be the bedrock, the first condition that should be established, for someone seeking after liberation. We are both formed by associating with good people, and we can become good people. In meditation we purify the bodily base so it can act as the reference point for our intentions and behaviors. A sense of meaningful purpose and alignment to true duty then inform the ‘true person’. |
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Cittaviveka
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2021-04-24
Dhamma Stream Q&A
42:27
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Ajahn Sucitto
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| What is sati; How to stop awareness landing on negative thoughts; ‘Energies’ don’t seem to be mentioned much, what are they; What to do about lots of romantic preoccupations; Please review 4 relationships mentioned in last Dhamma Stream teaching: to self, to nature, the sacred, to other people; How to handle toxic relationships/ones that require forgiveness; How to deal with clashes with views in relationship; How do you maintain awareness in relationship? |
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Cittaviveka
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At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
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2021-04-21
Belonging to the Earth
48:39
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Tara Brach
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| As a species, forgetting our belonging to our larger body of Earth is causing suffering for this entire living web. In this talk we look at what causes and sustains this trance of forgetting. We then explore the ways we each can awaken a sense of loving connectedness and active caring toward our natural world. |
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2021-04-21
Doing and Not-Doing in Meditation and Daily Life 5: Talk, Guided Meditation, Discussion
1:15:23
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Donald Rothberg
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| We briefly review the main themes of our practice in the last sessions: The importance of "doing" and skillful effort in our formal practice and in our daily lives; the parallel importance of "not-doing" (particularly receptivity) in these areas; some ways to inquire into the nature of our identities as "doers"; some ways of bringing these practices into daily life; the experience of "flow" and being an "expert" in a given area as pointing to a kind of "doing" coming out of a deep not-doing; and the theme of not-doing in Taoist tradition (emphasizing the work of Chuang Tzu) and Buddhist tradition. We suggest that all of practice points toward this deep non-doing as an expression of awakening. We then explore this territory in a 20-minute guided meditation, followed by discussion. |
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-04-21
Guided Meditation on Doing and Not-Doing in Our Meditation Practice
30:29
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Donald Rothberg
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| A thirty-minute or so guided meditation, lightly guided, with three successive instructions: (1) to set intentions in light of whether one needs in general to emphasize "doing" more or less, and then to focus initially on settling, connecting with the primary object and noticing when one is distracted; (2) to emphasize receptivity as a dimension of not-doing in being with what is predominant, after an initial period of settling; and (3) opening to a kind of "choiceless awareness," simply noticing what is occurring moment by moment. |
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2021-04-20
Relating Wisely to this Sensual World
1:12:40
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Mark Nunberg
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| The Buddha’s teachings encourage us to cultivate an intimate ongoing mindful presence, a deep respect for cause and effect, and a profound equanimity as we live our sensual embodied lives. The Buddha asks us to directly discern the very real experience of gratification, the inevitable stress that arises with any attachment to sensuality, and the deepening insight of the heart’s release from the burning of craving and dependence that we experience in our wiser moments. |
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Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
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2021-04-14
32 Parts of the Body—Tears, Grease, Saliva, Mucus, Oil of the Joints, Urine
62:00
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Bob Stahl
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| We are happy to announce a special opportunity to practice the 32 Parts of the Body meditation, which is rarely taught in the West. This practice deepens insight into impermanence and non-self by penetrating into the true nature and wonders of the body. We will also explore how the body interrelates with the four primary elements of earth (solidity), air (motion), fire (temperature), and water (liquidity).
This methodical practice of the 32 Parts of the Body Meditation can build immense levels of concentration, potentialities for healing, and experience the taste of deep freedom and peace.
This is the 15th year of offering this class at Insight Santa Cruz and it has been truly wonderful. People have frequently reported developing a whole new relationship to their bodies with greater wisdom and compassion. We will also be hopefully doing a tour of the Cabrillo Anatomy lab to get a deeper experience of the body. |
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Insight Santa Cruz
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2021-04-14
Doing and Not-Doing in Meditation and Daily Life 4: Talk, Guided Meditation, and Discussion
1:13:33
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Donald Rothberg
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| We review briefly the basic perspectives that we've explore in preceding sessions: the importance of active "doing" in meditation and daily life, the importance as well as receptivity and "not-doing" in meditation and daily life, and ways in which to inquire into our more fixed identity as a "doer." We then look at two broad perspectives on a doing coming out of a deep not-doing: (1) in "flow" experiences and the experiences of "experts" in a given area, with examples from art, music, sports, and everyday life; and (2) in spiritual traditions, with a particular emphasis on Taoist and Buddhist sources.
Then there is a second guided meditation, about 20 minutes long, and beginning at 35:55, grounded in the earlier guided meditation before the talk, in which we explore a progressive letting-go of both more gross and more subtle dimensions of meditative doing, opening up to a deeper non-doing, which can be the basis for the "doing coming out of a deep not-doing" we explored in the talk.
Finally, we have open discussion. |
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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