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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Ajahn Sucitto's Dharma Talks
Ajahn Sucitto
As a monk, I bring a strong commitment, along with the renunciate flavor, to the classic Buddhist teachings. I play with ideas, with humor and a current way of expressing the teachings, but I don't dilute them.
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2020-07-19 Handling Difficult Feeling 48:26
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The unawakened citta always reacts and tries to interpret what’s happening. Rather than interpret experience, notice the stress building up. Hover over the difficult feeling and equanimity, compassion, goodwill gradually comes in.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-19 Reclining Meditation 5:01
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The reclining posture uses the entire length of the body to establish firmness. Open the front of the body to the space around, like a blanket of goodwill covering the body.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-18 Q&A 41:50
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Working with feeling foggy in meditation; firmness and openness in walking meditation; relationship between emotions and bodily tension; working with doubt; releasing energy through hands, feet and head; cultivating generosity triggers constriction.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-18 Tending to Body Energy 5:04
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Everything that affects us comes into our bodies, so a lot of stress can accumulate. Sympathize with what the body energy requires so it can come out of its pressurized jumbled state.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-18 The Open and Unrestricted Heart 41:09
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Attention is generally driven by self-interest, to seek what is pleasant. The possibilities of what one receives are then restricted by the “self program”. Unrestricted means changing the baseline from that of the person to something impersonal that can yet be subjectively experienced – clarity, lovingkindness, letting go. Mindfulness of body acts as a platform for steady open awareness.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-18 Walking Meditation: Come Out of the Boundary of Me 8:40
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Instructions for experiencing unrestricted awareness while walking: give attention to the flow of energy from firmness to openness. Notice the restrictions of visual and mental consciousness creeping in, and bring attention back to the rhythmic play of energy.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-18 Guided Meditation – Coming out of the Restricted State 33:57
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Coming out of restriction requires examining stuck places with awareness. Guidance is provided to explore the experience the bodily form as it happens.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-18 Unrestricted Awareness 37:48
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We try to maintain order in a chaotic world, but our attempts tend to constrict and isolate. Clear the obscurations and restrictions by recognizing what is really causing stress and pressure – it’s not the external conditions but what the mind is making of them.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Unrestricted Awareness
2020-07-12 Unravel the Web 42:29
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Our habitual tendencies and conditioning weave a web of saṃsāra that we keep running around on. But we can generate new formulations and programs to steady and calm the mind, get it fit for the work of liberation. Mindfulness of body and breathing, and brahmavihāra cultivation are recommended practices.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2020 Opening Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery
2020-07-11 Open Road – Out of Pressure 38:50
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Citta doesn’t start out liberated. It has to come through ignorance, craving and grasping. We can learn from this, what is the wrong path and what is the right path. The right path gets obscured by feeling and perception. Steady the energies and stay out of the activities of mind – the right path is there, it’s an open road.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2020 Opening Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery
2020-07-10 Refresh Energy through Breathing 29:24
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Refreshing and regenerating energy is a necessary part of our practice to counter tense, constricted and disconnected states. Mindfulness of breathing is a means for toning up. We can go to the energetic bases of these tendencies and clear them.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2020 Opening Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery
2020-07-09 Thinking without a Thinker 34:04
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When full ground is not properly established, thinking creates the thinker. With proper ground, it’s possible to hover over the thought process and listen deeply to the underlying emotional stream. Establish ground using a simple meditation object that the mind can easily access and stabilize on.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2020 Opening Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery
2020-07-08 Commitment to Lightness 38:46
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In our practice we’re looking not so much at what we want but what we want to release ourselves from – clinging. We challenge the compulsiveness of our reactions, to fight or to grab, with a commitment to lightness. We apply ourselves with deliberate, steady, lightness of touch so things can move and release.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2020 Opening Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery
2020-07-07 Foundation for Meditation 43:55
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To relax the activity of the mind, awareness – citta – needs something else to stand on. We set up internal and external foundations that generate the sense of steadiness and stability. This enables us to get perspective and step back from the stream of energies and mind-states that we call ‘myself.’
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2020 Opening Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery
2020-07-05 Saturday Public Talk: Āsalha Puja – The Pleasure of Release 49:46
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On Āsalha Puja we commemorate the occasion when the Buddha gave his first teaching on the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Path of Practice. By cultivating this Path, the mind stops looking outside of itself – it finds pleasure in itself.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-07-05 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Guided Meditation – The Content of the Mind 10:09
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Contemplating the mind, not trying to change or explain it, knowing it as just a mental state, a result of causes and conditions. If feeling pressed upon by the mind, pause and widen. Bring attention to the body. Determine the appropriate attitude for settling.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-28 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Training in Mutuality-Based Speech Lessens Self-Centeredness 48:16
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Speech, whether internal or external, tends to reinforce and reify the sense of self. Self-awareness, rather than self-referencing, is recommended. Speech has the possibility of helping to prune, clarify, steady – it can help lead to the end of the person. Sutta references: AN4:183; M.58:12
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-28 Dhamma Stream Guided Meditation - Settling into Shared Space 13:17
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The mind becomes crowded with our thoughts, impressions, plans and worries. But what’s the bit that’s not occupied by all of that? Stability and confidence are available in that space, to meet what is arising.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-21 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Nibbidā – Turning Away from Conditioned Consciousness 45:28
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An untrained mind has no choice, it goes straight into dukkha; the trained mind has the possibility to turn away from patterns that the mind creates. The hinge-point is nibbidā – disinterest, disenchantment – to no longer be gripped by the play of the mind. Through this, mental patterns can be acknowledged as they arise but not entered into. Through remaining with dispassionate awareness, liberation can be realized. *Sutta references - AN10:2; SN35:28
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-21 Dhamma Stream Guided Meditation: Surveying the Movements of Mind and Body 10:05
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Instructions for surveying the movements of mind and body from a wider, detached perspective. See the patterns that arise without fixating on them. Topics can then be approached from a more enlightened perspective.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-17 Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery Public Talk: Guide to Unrestricted Awareness 1:15:59
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A good teacher (Acariya) encourages and pushes the mind of the disciple away from the changeable world presented by sense-consciousness, to the more fruitful reality that’s centred on Dhamma. In this talk, the principles of this are pointed out, and as exemplified by Ajahn Chah. This talk was offered on Ajahn
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-14 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Doing the Not-Doing 43:08
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It’s the compulsiveness and repetitiveness of certain actions that creates the sense of a solid self. So we aim for the end of action, for non-doing, and linger there. Keep relaxing and widening awareness without acting. Energy is released from activations – this is the ending of kamma. *Sutta Reference: AN10:81
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-14 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Guided Meditation – Awareness Has No Boundary 11:04
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Awareness is open – it simply knows and can witness. If we can widen and broaden awareness, we don’t have to get snagged by the circumstances of our “self-package”.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-07 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Q&A - Do Your Dharma 42:56
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Reflections given on questions about how to deal with other people, the social order based on human domination, and how to practice with sickness.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-07 Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery Online Lay Forum: Q&A on Kamma 42:41
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Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-07 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Guided Meditation 9:57
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Instructions for widening the reference point, and notice that everything arises within awareness. Practice being with, not in.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-07 Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery Online Lay Forum: Kamma 17:46
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Kamma – what it is, how it works, and why understanding it is crucial
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-06-05 Podcast: If You Won't Create Your Own Life the World Will Create It for You 1:11:33
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Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-05-31 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Healing Potential of the Heart 47:47
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Training involves the pause – connect to what’s happening, and use careful attention to deepen into citta. There’s more than just discomfort there – there’s healing potential if one can touch into the healthy spots. *Sutta reference Udāna 4:1
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-05-29 Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery Uposatha Public Talk: The Foundation for Relinquishment Is Comfort 51:16
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There are many meditation techniques, but fundamental is finding where the mind will settle - what citta finds comfort in. The more energy rests in that and returns to is, energy is consolidated instead of scattered, running out to external forms. This is the principle for clarification, purification, for awakening.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-05-24 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Freeing the Heart from the Whip of ‘Should Be’ 37:55
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Mind (manas) whips the heart with its interpretations of how things should be, thereby stirring up discontent and agitation. Mind can be placed in service of heart (citta) instead. Citta’s awakened response to the conditioned realm is one of empathy. Holding, soothing, steadying – there is the possibility to experience the clarity and calm of the Buddha rather than the misery that mind creates. *Sutta Nipāta: 721, Dhammapada:134, and M.18
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-05-17 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Make Your Mind Like Gold 37:49
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The process of purifying gold can help us understand the nature of mind. Clearing out the turbulences and impurities makes way for what is naturally pure and radiant to come forth. Freed from the hindrances, the mind is pliable, luminous, properly fit for work. *Sutta references: AN5:193; AN3:101-102; SN:46:53; AN6:85
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-05-10 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Spiritual Friendship As the Basis for Awakening 35:45
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We may feel more isolated than ever, but the truth is that we’re always captive in our sensory prisons. The aim is to liberate and open the heart so that qualities beyond sense consciousness can be realized. Key among the factors needed for liberation is kalyāṇamitta – spiritual friendship. *Sutta reference AN9:3
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-05-03 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Gift of Vulnerability 32:03
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It’s possible to meet suffering with an open heart. If the heart can open to grief, pain and vulnerability, a new view is possible – one beyond the cycle of birth and death. Keep the heart open to Dhamma, rooted in faith and goodwill. This is the Path to the deathless. *Sutta References: Therīgatha 6:2; Samyutta Nikaya 12:23; Samyutta Nikaya 1:10
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-04-26 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Way Out of the Flood 35:37
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Mindfulness based on body is the way out of the mind. From here I can witness feeling rather than dive into it. With wisdom we can come to prefer skillful intention rather than seeking good feeling. When intention is skillful conduct, there is no grasping at results. That feels good! And we are free to act without seeking a result, without becoming. *Sutta reference is AN10:58.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-04-19 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Skill of Recollection 39:14
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Recollection is not just thinking about things, it’s associated with the quality of careful attention. Encourage the mind to think slowly, touch the heart and abide in wholesome qualities. In daily life we do the external, but embedded in the ground of the heart is where your basis is. *Sutta reference is AN11:11-12.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-04-12 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The End of Fear 26:17
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We look for safety and stability in a level of experience that cannot provide it, that’s the source of agitation. In meditation we practice the ability to sustain ungrasping attention around a thought, feeling, situation, and particularly unpleasant feeling. The content will constantly shift, but the relationship to them, awareness, can become the source of stability. *Sutta reference is SN2:17.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-04-09 Home Movie from the Kuti: Where and How Are You Going? 35:30
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We can use this experience of lock down to address the routines and standards that support our daily becoming. The mind is pulled further and further wondering what to do, planning what's next. What to do is stop, rest in the body, maintain deep attention. Consider rituals that nuplug and cut the tide of becoming.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-04-05 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Protecting Ourselves and Others 30:08
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By protecting ourselves we protect others. When we protect our own hearts from defensiveness, blame, hostility and stress, we also protect others. We train ourselves through the 4 foundations of mindfulness. *Sutta reference is SN47:19.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-04-03 Home Movie from the Kuti: Dealing with Isolation 38:16
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Even in this experience of physical isolation, we’re not exactly separate – we’re always with something. Practicing with the relational sense, we meet everything as it is rather than trying to change it or fix it. From this broad state of awareness, edges and boundaries soften, and the heart connects with lovingkindness, regardless of physical proximity.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-03-20 Nibbāna – The Taste of Freedom 46:09
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Is it possible that the obstructions we meet are our fiercest teachers? We encounter the places where construction is no longer possible. It’s the last place we want to go, but if we can cultivate skillful means to linger there, we can taste nibbāna in this very life.
Cittaviveka
2020-03-16 Acknowledging the Causal Field 20:11
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Using the sound of the bell, we can notice what meanings and reactions are triggered. It all happens within awareness. We can practice tracing our reactions back to their causal roots, aware of the energies that generate compulsive and agitating feelings and activities.
Bosoord Center :  A Whole Life Path: Abiding in Stillness, Engaging with Wisdom
2020-03-16 Guided Meditation – Setting Up a Causal Loop of Goodwill 27:21
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Establish the body in upright grounded presence so other structures can be supported by this central structure. Internally, refrain from instinctual differentiations. Include everything without adding what’s not needed. Resonate goodwill through the realm of awareness.
Bosoord Center :  A Whole Life Path: Abiding in Stillness, Engaging with Wisdom
2020-03-14 Guided Meditation – Recollecting Buddha 31:02
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The mind needs to resonate many times with something that gives it confidence, assurance, clarity. Buddha represents that. Guidance given to recollect qualities of Buddha, feeling the effects as resonances in the body, lingering to encourage the effects to pervade.
Bosoord Center :  A Whole Life Path: Abiding in Stillness, Engaging with Wisdom
2020-03-07 The Touch of Empathy 34:15
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What happens when confronted with what we don’t like? Drips of ill will – blame, grudges – build up a crust. Detox is about breaking through that crust. Connecting to the bodily presence, we can touch the hurt of fear, inadequacy and desperation with empathy.
Bosoord Center :  A Whole Life Path: Abiding in Stillness, Engaging with Wisdom
2020-03-01 Guided Meditation: Listening with the Body 20:27
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The body and mind are not separate. Emotional resonances and residues manifest as an energetic continuum in the body. Cultivating mindfulness of body allows us to touch into this causal field. The body listens, the emotions speak. Energy can then pass through.
Bosoord Center :  A Whole Life Path: Abiding in Stillness, Engaging with Wisdom
2020-02-26 Renewal Means Refrain from Going Back 24:24
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Being comes before doing. Openness needs the protection of Refuge, not the defensiveness of ill-will. Renewal is not a case of planning or trying something new, but of stopping the re-creating of the old self. Citta then renews by itself.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-26 Aligning to Direct Experience 11:25
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As phenomena arise, align understanding to direct experience. Clear away inferences such as time and the notion of the body. All phenomena arise within awareness. Extend awareness through breathing. Pervade the body with tonalities of goodwill rather than of ill-will or no will.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-25 The Open Way 42:36
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This Path often leads into unknowns, disorientation, places where things don’t fit our normal ways. Meeting these places with strategies doesn’t work, but good qualities of heart leads into a quiet, joyful openness. This supports faith.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-24 Engaged Receptivity 51:29
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The essence of meditation is engaged receptivity. This is the skill of pausing for a minute and witnessing the flow of dhammas. It becomes fully established by strong mindfulness, so that ‘full knowing’ (sampajañña) gives the view of the causal web: that dhammas arise from causes and are not self.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-24 Aimless wandering’ Meditation 3:36
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Take advantage of being in this natural realm. Move around very slowly and relate to everything from the heart. Notice the felt sense that is evoked, how nature touches and speaks to you. Nature reflects back aspects of your own heart.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-24 The Arising of Heart 55:25
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Clearance and renewal is a heart process. It entails meeting emotional material where it begins, with an energetic resonance. Body receives and moderates the energy, clearing the way for fundamental heart qualities to meet phenomena.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-23 Q&A 55:48
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What is mindfulness; What is investigation; Unusual images arising in meditation; Death and afterlife; How to deal with vulnerability of heart?
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-23 Mindfulness of Breathing 11:37
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Mindfulness of breathing is the gathering of attention around a process that is flowing and fluid. The steady and suffusive quality of breathing eases tensions in the heart and mind. The thinking process quietens down and external sights and sounds don’t impinge allowing the natural qualities of the heart become more apparent.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-23 Removing the Bookmark of Suffering 55:42
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Felt meanings are triggered through contact. They are conditioned, and over time become like bookmarks that we return to. It’s possible to acknowledge agitating ones and discharge them through the body. Positive meanings can be cultivated and embodied, generating new bookmarks.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-23 Puja – Resounding Meaning 19:17
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Puja is the act of praising, honouring, lifting up particular spiritual values. It’s not limited by what one can or can’t do. The heart can be lifted to feel spiritual qualities – awakening, purity, generosity. This shifts one’s centre from the world back to one’s own heart.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-22 Guided Meditation – Body Sweeping 32:02
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Body sweeping meditation encourages attention that gathers around an object. Rather than absorbing into phenomena, attention remains broad and open, like a loop.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-22 Whatever the Content, Establish the Container 35:19
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Mindfulness replaces self as the container and arbiter if experience. Self finds it difficult to be with the disagreeable, the crazy, the chaotic, the out of control. Self searches for success, and dreads failure. Mindfulness can handle real life: no success, no failure.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-22 Clearance of the Energetic (Causal) Basis 48:01
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The basis of body, mind and heart is a field of interconnective energies. Clear the body through breathing and posture; clear the mind by disengaging. The heart naturally opens in this healthier atmosphere. The field is now primed to ventilate difficult emotions allowing renewal to occur.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-22 Walking Meditation: Keep the Whole Body Open 8:15
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Walking meditation is a whole body experience. Set up the upright and lateral frame, and extend the web of energy across the whole body. ‘Listen’ with the skin as you walk, taking in the space. When the body feels its wholeness it becomes more balanced and relaxed, conducing to release.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
In collection: A Moving Balance
2020-02-22 Puja: Brightening the Heart Tone 4:46
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Based on an upright, open posture, chanting adds vocal tone to breathing. Breath becomes sound through bodily resonators. The release of breathing out, combined with the resonance and the reference to images of purity and compassion is brightening.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-22 Refreshing through Posture 23:01
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Practice with opening the body as an energetic formation. Muscles can relax on an upright posture, the boundaries of the bodies can relax. Opening into the surrounding space ventilates stale energies, supporting clearer attitudes and a brighter heart.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-21 Clearing Is Renewal 39:33
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We come on retreat to clear the negative, the compulsive, the cluttered. Acknowledging the causal potential to adopt behaviours and attitudes and transmit them to others, there is a need to clear and reset. The warm, safe, cooperative retreat environment allows for new growth after the clearing.
Emoyeni Retreat Centre :  Clearing and Renewal
2020-02-18 Staying in Touch with What’s Meaningful 18:42
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We are encouraged to stay in touch with relationships to values, virtues, that which we hold sacred. Regular recollections of the following are recommended: relationship with the sacred, with one’s body, with other people, with the Earth.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-18 Chanting: Buddha’s Words on Lovingkindness 3:16
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Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-18 Meaning and Use of Refuges and Precepts 19:49
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The end of retreat brings the occasion to recollect our good actions and results. This is both in terms of what we do and what we refrain from. We also take the opportunity to align to refuges and precepts as a reminder to stay awake.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-18 Endnotes on Meditation 34:32
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Cultivation of heart and mind extends beyond sitting on the cushion. This core practice of being in your body is a touchstone for sanity and for happiness. Through this we can discharge qualities that can’t be dealt with in daily life. It can be practiced in any posture. Know where the stress is arising, and meet it with a spacious body and accepting heart.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-17 Q&A 2 46:06
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Environmental crisis; addictive patterning; kamma; firm center; fear and pragmatic security.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-17 How I Became a Monk 40:04
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In response to yogi questions, Ajahn Sucitto recounts how he became a monk.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-17 Addressing the Causal (Energy) Field 65:52
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Commands and pressure compress energy. The result is the cannonball drive through life – unreceptive, driven and numb. Learn to cultivate energy properly. Go to the body – extend, widen, soften. View the causal field as it is, not as self.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-17 Guided Meditation: Sweeping Energy & Space around the Body 35:47
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It takes time for the bodily energy to unfold upon waking. Don’t go into your mind. Give attention to extending and spreading the body’s energy field. Pay particular attention to the sense of space.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-16 Awareness Has No Boundaries 65:30
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Meditation is based on the fact that mind can open and encompass the whole world of experience. Gathering energy and awareness into the here and now, and unhooking from the contents of consciousness establishes a very firm center that is also open. The result is unbound awareness.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-16 The Causal Field and the Escape from It 54:23
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All experience is caused by something – it’s conditioned. We act based on these causes and conditions, reinforcing their hold. But there are particular actions that can bring about release from this causal continuum.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-15 Content and Container 64:41
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All content needs a container. Content of heart shapes the container of experience. Supportive tones/perceptions are skilful content. They encourage a generous, spacious and cool container that allows tangled mental content to unravel.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-15 Walking Meditation: Open and Moored to a Firm Center 5:08
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Practice with keeping the front center of the body open, as if the skin boundary is feeling and reading the movement through space. Mind opens, drops some of its congestion. Thought patterns can be ventilated. Most important is to remain open and moored to a firm center.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
In collection: A Moving Balance
2020-02-15 5 Indriya 39:11
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The mind gets taken over by defective programs causing imbalance. This imbalance is called dukkha. The Buddha introduced a graduated way to shift this imbalance. This process brings up indriya, spiritual faculties. These help to mediate the tendencies of craving and clinging and result in a greater sense of harmony and balance.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-14 Q&A 1 64:12
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Physical pain; draining tension through the body; meeting the agitation of being on retreat; dealing with demons and emotional chaos; are liberation practices and goodwill compatible; is goodwill readily available through study and reflection; what thoughts to let pass, what to examine; definition and experience of full knowing; is noting necessary for Vipassana?
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-14 Liberation and Structures 58:35
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Our personality patterning can be very intense and driven. We’ve got to build in something that holds it back, slows it down, tames it. We use a combination of structures and tonality to create new patterns, ones that keep us from holding on.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-14 Rising Energies and Tonalities 36:15
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Citta gets shaped into particular forms based on causes and conditions. Over time it can get locked into distorted forms constricting the natural nature of citta which is flexible, bright and expansive. With a mind of unconditional acceptance, energetic patterns can be cleaned and released through body.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-13 Develop a Forcefield of Goodwill 7:36
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In recollection we use thought more slowly than usual. Capture the meaning and touch the heart. This is a way to reset the heart, making it strong so it doesn’t go into resentment, grudges and other unpleasant states.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-13 Hold the Heart Steady against the Push of Ill-Will 43:56
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The general mode is to change the outside world to please the heart, but this can never satisfy. We practice instead to change the heart, to make it strong enough to withstand the push of ill-will. Refuges include the Triple Gem, brahmavihāras, mindfulness of body and precepts.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-13 Deep Attention – Referencing Uplifting Tones 54:09
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In any cultivation there is a referencing that occurs. In Dhamma practice we refer back to uplifting tones – integrity, respect, appropriateness. These invite skillful qualities to arise making it possible to unseat demons of violence, greed and efficiency.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-13 Making the Mind Fit 21:13
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The nature of mind is what you give attention to will grow. We use recollection to generate uplifting tones in the heart, to increase bright energy. This makes the mind fit to meet afflictive patterns and energies.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-13 Direct Practice: Sound Opens the Silence 31:31
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This is an exercise in direct practice, using sound to train the mind. Making a sound from one’s own voice, we use it to lengthen attention over one particular phenomenon rather than jumping onto the next thing. It opens the silence where the mind is poised, listening.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-12 Guided Meditation: Body Sweeping – Staying Open but Focused 23:07
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In meditation we use the thinking mind minimally, placing greater emphasis on the listening mind. This guided meditation gives practice in lengthening the listening, lingering mind.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-12 4 Basic Postures 34:43
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An overview of the 4 basic postures for meditation: sitting, standing [14:00], walking [17:05] and reclining [25:45].
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-12 Firm Center Open Heart 42:52
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On this retreat, practices for establishing a firm center and open heart will be presented. Openness can be too vulnerable, we need to know what to filter and what to linger in. Precepts offer a firm center of integrity. The body can be a source of steady and calm. We bring to heart and mind that which is beautiful and aspirational to shift agitated energies. These are our refuges.
Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa :  Ajahn Sucitto, Firm Centre Open Heart Retreat
2020-02-09 Refuges, Precepts and Reflections 61:57
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We can establish Firm Centre Open Heart as a core way of being. Refuges and precepts offer support as we train to remain awake and attentive outside of retreat. Vows of virtue and morality, when held with firm flexibility, allow wholesome qualities to be transmitted through the open heart.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-09 Opening and Soothing the Causal Field 57:04
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The theme of the retreat, Firm Centre Open Heart, is a reminder of what the work is. Remaining steady in the “here-ness” of body, and opening the energetic field supports the releasing of kamma. In return you receive the natural beauty of your heart.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-09 Turning Attention Back to the Source 36:54
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Rather than asking why things arise, ask where. Turn attention towards the field of body, behind where phenomena arise. This is a quiet and stable place.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-08 How to Sustain an Open Heart 66:54
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We can notice where we add stress to an already painful, difficult situation. The cause is tanhā and upādāna, craving and clinging. Use meditation to review the craving mind and feel the feeling without closing around it. The duty of the heart is to allow phenomena to arise and pass away.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-08 The Calming Effects of Puja 24:54
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The devotional practices of pūjā can be used to steady the energetic field. Resonate simple sounds, images and meanings in the body to steady thought energy and open the heart.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-08 The Healing of an Opened Heart 58:02
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An open heart is a transmitter of good qualities. Unsettled energies cause intentions and actions to lack clarity and steadiness. Relate to the energies of body, speech and mind with receptivity, compassion and goodwill. It’s the tonality that matters.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-07 Q&A 52:06
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Can non-monastics in the west reach enlightenment? Attachment in relationships; How to encourage care for the environment; Qualities that free us from world of senses; Freedom from rage resulting from abusive relationships; Compassionate response to racist remarks
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-07 The Liberating View 13:53
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A good part of our practice is adjustment in view. The divided view always leads to stirring and agitation. Deal with the rippling of energy directly in the wide overall field of body.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-07 Transformation of Consciousness 64:06
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There can be a fundamental shifting of intention, of the source of kamma. Rather than following habitual reactions, hold them with a heart of goodwill and restraint. Through the expanding of relational intent is the cessation of suffering and stress.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-06 Mindfulness of Breathing 65:12
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Rather than being about the inhalation and exhalation of breath, mindfulness of breathing is about soothing the life force energy. As energy settles in the body, many disruptive emotive tendencies are cleared, leaving the heart available to meet experience in a balanced and sensitive way.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-06 Kamma and Saṇkhāra 46:33
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We might experience running down familiar emotional tracks (saṇkhāra). Tracks get laid down by the repeated and habitual reactions to contact (kamma). To clear disturbing and negative tracks, widen attention and check the habitual impulse. The mind naturally seeks harmony and balance. Listen deeply for its response.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-06 Natural Walking 11:13
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Natural walking has a smooth and self-synchronizing quality. It gives the mind a place to sit where it feels satisfied and doesn’t run out. This is the direction of samādhi.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart
2020-02-06 3 Channels for Energy 29:57
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There is a 3-fold system through which energy operates: bodily, conceptual and emotive. As we practice to resolve and release negative energies, we need resources. Bringing together the 3 aspects of body, mind and heart provide a way to open channels to drain and release unresolved energies.
Dharmagiri :  Firm Center, Open Heart

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