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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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2019-12-12 Patient and Loving Acceptance 68:31
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The body is much more than an idea, it’s something that’s here for us. With patient and loving acceptance we can clear disturbances from the body and experience a pleasant and steady abiding here and now.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-12 Skillful Means in the Cultivation of Wisdom 61:02
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Wisdom is a natural feature of the mind. With its cultivation comes the ability to discern skillful from unskillful. But just knowing things are unskillful doesn’t stop the mind from doing it, we have to develop skillful means. We use mindfulness to be able to see through ignorance and stand back from the unskillful pulls of mind.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-11 Meditation as Re-education 66:35
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Modern modes of attention, information and meaning-making cut us off from our natural intelligence. Mindfulness of body and breathing puts us back in touch with the tonality, naturalness and rhythm of embodied intelligence. We use this way of meditation to re-educate us.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-11 Q&A 58:59
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1) What is citta? 2) Regrets, how to forgive oneself 3) How to practice appamano states in everyday life (mudita, equanimity) 4) How to work with obstructive mind-states (judgmental, not good enough, lonely, regretful, hopelessness) 5) How to practice reclining meditation 6) Headaches in certain mind-states
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-11 The Gentle and Harmonious Tonality of Puja 16:00
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Beginning the day with puja, a certain tonality is established. Not the abrasive, pushy, congested one of modern day, but something beautiful, timeless, gentle and steady. As we enact puja, we establish the Triple Gem as a heart quality that we can sit within. This is our refuge place.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-10 Guided Meditation: Heartful Sympathy for All Beings 42:01
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This guided meditation touches into a fundamental quality that arose with the Buddha’s final realization – anukamapa, heartfelt sensitivity and sympathy for the welfare of sentient beings. We practice by generating perceptions and relating directly to the resulting experience.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-10 Mind’s Nature Is to Be Happy 62:55
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We live in the sense world, but we don’t have to run out into it. We can see, hear and touch, but keep the heart collected inwardly. This gives a sense of balance and peace, an inner happiness.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-10 Make the First Effort of the Day with Wisdom and Persistence 16:12
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Take the opportunity when you begin your day to turn away from unskillful states and start putting down the seeds for skillful states. Committing to precepts and recollecting Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha bring mental firmness. Breathing and chanting bring physical vitality and brightness. This builds up the reserves of wisdom and vitality to sustain you through the day.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 Care for the Mind – It’s Your Home 56:52
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Whatever we incline our minds toward will affect us. Where do I want to give my attention? Where do I want to commit my time? These are helpful reflections. The mind is our home. Practicing with themes of restraint, mindfulness and careful attention, we have a chance to brighten and purify it.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 How to Stand Back from the Stream of Mind 63:35
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It can be humbling to recognize that we’re not getting the results we’re going for in practice. We cultivate 4 Dhamma factors – motivation, energy, relinquishment & investigation – to understand the stream of mind we keep getting caught in, and to develop the capacity to stand back from it.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 The Key to Standing Meditation: Balance 23:37
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If the back is not yet strong enough to sustain the sitting posture, standing offers relief. The feet, legs and ground sustain the upright posture so shoulders and upper body can relax. The key reference is balance.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 Skillful Placement of the Mind 38:47
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Beginning our day, we realize the potential of the mind for confusion or clarity. We need to be quick to steer the mind towards the skillful. In puja we raise up skillful qualities of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha as images and perceptions. This establishes a tone of brightness, persistence and open-heartedness.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-08 How to Settle and Calm 43:52
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When the heart can’t access its own centeredness and stability, the experience of insecurity and discomfort results. We can intentionally introduce skillful thoughts and perceptions to settle and calm the heart.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-08 The Path to Liberation Is through Direct Experience 53:17
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There are two modes of experience, conceived and direct. Conceived experience keeps us stuck in the endless cycle of saṃsara. The way out is through direct experience. Practice with sensing the direct experience of body.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-08 Puja: A Purification Process 1:16:15
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Puja is more than just thinking and recollecting. It’s very much an embodied, vocalized, participatory practice. You don’t really think about puja, you do it. In the doing of it there’s a particular energy, a collective harmony and a collective action that has purification effects.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-07 Preparing the Heart and Mind for Practice 63:48
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An explanation of the opening rituals: what offering respect to the Triple Gem means; what the shrine offerings represent; how the precepts support our intention to train. Closes with the exhortation to make an effort with friendliness.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-10-12 Integrity Leads to Awakening 54:22
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With reference to AN10:61, this teaching reviews the nutriments that result in ignorance, and the nutriments that result in true knowledge and liberation. For the latter, it starts with a person of integrity, with kalyanamitta. We all model something to each other. Cultivating purity of mind, thought, intention, speech, action is then not only for our welfare, but for the welfare of others.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-12 Approach to Samadhi and Its Benefits 38:53
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Intention is conditioned to move forward, to move to the next thing. But the encouragement here is to moderate one’s citta – volitional tendencies. Recollect the skillful, linger and deepen into the feeling of it until the mind is gladdened, settled, brought to singularity. There is always more to do on the conditioned level – taking time to store up the good in this way should not be neglected.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-11 Sweeping the Path 29:54
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Like dust, defilements creep into the mind and build up. We live in a dusty world, it’s not a personal failing. The normal response is to be vigilant about sweeping – sustain mindfulness. Persistence, energy, and right attitude are required.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-10 The Way Out of the Jungle 32:50
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We can do better than just getting by. We can feel fulfilled in a deep way, released from our confusion and blind spots. We use meditation to cultivate qualities of non-suffering, comfort and steadiness and extend them. The resulting inner harmony becomes our vehicle for walking through the jungle of the heart.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-09 Meeting the Wild Stuff 36:10
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The way of the world is linked up to the five hindrances, so we can’t often see them. Automatic attention takes you straight into them. Train attention to be broad and dispassionate. Recognize sense objects for what they are, a secondary reality. Primary reality is contact impression, how citta is affected.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-08 Cultivating Factors for Release 30:10
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The mind requires both calm and energy for release. Then abandonment comes through investigation. The investigation is calm and sympathetic; thinking is minimal, mostly feeling and sensing how it is. A return to forest dwellers’ practice is recommended.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-07 Forest Awareness 54:54
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With reference to MN19, this teaching addresses the two kinds of thought – ones that lead to my welfare, the welfare of others and the welfare of both, and ones that don’t. But rather than giving attention to the particular thoughts, encouragement is given to tune into the underlying mind stream. Get the feel of it. This requires holistic attention – for one to be alert, sensitive and receptive.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-06 Guided Meditation: Introduction to Forest Awareness 49:39
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This guided meditation is an invitation to return to the kind of awareness standard of a forest dweller. Defocus and dislodge attention from particular points and details, and tune in to the overall sense of being here. Present, alert, attentive, knowing – not aware of anything, aware of everything.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-05 Walking in the Dark 47:48
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How can we turn from being an enemy to the planet? By turning off our “head-light” and turning on our “heart-light”. As humans we are uniquely positioned to produce morality, compassion and wisdom in this dark time of climate crisis. May we meet this opportunity heartfully, the way the Buddha described, trembling with compassion for the welfare of all living beings. May we open to the darkness, let it touch us deeply and wake us to a different way of seeing things.
Extinction Rebellion Brighton
2019-07-31 Clearing World from the Mind 49:02
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We look for certainty in things that can ever be certain. Constantly pulled out by the world, we leave the only thing that can ever be certain – citta. Rather than attempt to get away from unpleasant feeling, we can review it, soothe and release some of its tangles. We might find it’s possible to be with discomfort, yet free and deeply secure.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-29 Transmission of Dhamma to Cittaviveka 43:40
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Reflecting on the beginnings of Cittaviveka, there’s something to recognize beyond just the history. There’s the transmission, what’s happened in mind, heart and spirit. It can be tracked all the way to the Buddha and the first Noble Truth – a sign of inadequacy, suffering, stress and the wish to realize something further than that. A certain nobility of intention came out of that, and is the same thread of continuity that runs through the monastery today.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-23 Relevant Mindfulness 40:45
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Mindfulness is the ability to bear things in mind with a steady intention. Like the sides of the hand, there is a hard side with its ability to bar and repel corrupting influences, and a soft side that lingers and takes in the qualities. Select an object of meditation based on what’s needed, and give attention to the careful holding.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-22 Cooking Good Dhammas 36:53
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Dhammas are things that directly affect citta. They can be awakening factors or hindrances. We train to skillfully handle them, like taming a wild animal. The thinking mind acts as the trainer. Based on citta’s responses, appropriate themes to settle and calm the mind are presented. Citta rewards such sensitivity and responsiveness with pleasure, ease and wisdom.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-21 Guided Meditation - Receptivity of Mind 47:51
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In meditation we bring energy to receptivity of the mind. Generally, mind is in active mode. But through listening, sensitizing, and not moving onto the next thing, heart awareness opens more fully.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-21 Citta and Non-Grasping 38:30
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When the mind is not steady and has gone into activation, clinging is inevitable. The clung-to experience creates the person. But there’s a choice. Our responsibility is to manage the flood of the aggregates through mindfulness.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-20 Mindfulness and Non-Grasping 51:10
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The trained mind is fluid and flexible – natural. The untrained mind is fixed and grasping – loses its agility. Training comes through mindfulness of the 4 bases and 3 aspects of mind. Body gives mind something to anchor itself on so the habits of grasping that create a fixed self can be released.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-18 Body Trains Mind 48:58
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Body provides a steady reference for mind. Mind by itself runs off and gets lost it thoughts and emotions. Body gives a place from which to review mental phenomena. Simply by paying attention to what’s happening directly in the body, the mode of attention shifts. We can use body to empty mental proliferation.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-18 Whole Body Handles Feeling 40:36
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This energy field that carries sensation doesn’t just carry sensations from the physical world, but psychologically-induced experiences as well. This is where the experience of feeling starts to move between the bodily and mental base. If we practice with the feeling base of body, we have a guide for working with mental feeling.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-16 Asalha Puja – Middle Path 68:28
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We can get sidetracked with a focus on mindfulness or stress reduction or meditation techniques. We don’t understand what leads up to them, the Noble 8-Fold Path. This Path begins with right view - knowing the heart and how it’s affected - and right effort - bringing up skillful mindstates.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-05-31 Closing: Keeping Citta Fit for Practice 34:22
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There are places where the mind slips and slides into injurious patterns, subtle points of misconduct that do harm. Develop qualities of sīla to guard and protect the citta, shaping it according to Dhamma rather than to worldliness or old kamma.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-30 Guided Meditation: Sharing the Blessing 50:51
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The Offering of Truth: After making the dedication of offerings, a guided meditation that invites the qualities of generosity is provided. Through this, we recall what we’ve received from teachers, parents, the earth – and the challenges that have caused us to grows. As we recollect, we offer our ongoing aspiration.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-30 Advice for Ending Retreat 10:43
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-30 Associating with Good People 54:35
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Associating with good people is the nutriment that leads to true knowledge and liberation. We learn what’s most important from other people, not from books and ideas. To find good people, start by being one.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-28 The Unbiased and Unwavering Heart (Upekkhā) 61:00
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Cultivating equanimity (upekkhā) begins with touching into primal sympathy. As this develops, we are more able to meet experience without shrinking from it or becoming feverish for it. This paves the way for insight and release.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-27 Learning to Linger and Appreciate (Muditā) 59:27
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Liberation begins with appreciation of one’s own heart, one’s sensitivity. Learn to linger in it, and speak to it with kindness. Gladness and ease naturally arise, and the mind becomes concentrated. This is the natural Dhamma process.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-26 Guided Meditation: Begin with Intention 60:02
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Wherever intention is, there is citta. So we begin formal meditation practice there, establishing intentions based on goodwill, sensitivity and relinquishment. With these themes resonating in one’s heart, what can be put aside now?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-26 Strengthening through Compassion (Karuṇā) 50:52
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Citta is made stronger and deeper through cultivating patience and resolution. It gains an imperturbable stillness and serenity that lets things pass through. Steady in the face of the pleasant and unpleasant alike, this ‘soft strength’ refuses to give way to the tides of ill will.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-25 Integration through Goodwill (Mettā) 63:01
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The territories of the somatic field and qualities of goodwill are offered as a clear, firm foundation for wisdom. Having cultivated them on retreat, we need to integrate liberation, purity and goodwill into our lives.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-24 The Lucidity of Careful Attention 51:05
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We use careful attention – yoniso manasikāra – to steward the meditative process. It helps us know the appropriate technique to use and to discern what is skillful to give attention to and what is not. Without it, clinging coopts experience and makes an ‘I’ out of it. With it, there is non-clinging – lucidity – and the cessation of dukkha.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-23 Dismantle the Do-er 61:06
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Contemplation of how form manifests as the 4 great elements – earth, air, fire, water. When sensed externally and internally, materially and mentally, the biases that create separateness, and hence identity, begin to soften.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-21 Nibbāna Here and Now 57:35
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The 5 aggregates represent the sum total of our conditioned experience. When the direct experience of them is penetrated, and the activations of body and mind calmed, one gains insight into the momentary, concocted, selfless nature of experience itself.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-20 Purifying Posture 11:15
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Guidance on clearing the posture of compressions and strain.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-20 Relationship – The Core of Our Practice 61:27
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The I/me sense arises within a field of kamma. This requires consistent relational practice as we respond to both phenomena (object-experience) and activations (subject-experience) in the field. Mindfulness and a good somatic sense are the keys to relate to experience without clinging or proliferation.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-18 Q&A 60:15
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1) The difference between tanhā and upādāna – which is more important to address? 2) Stream entry – what is it, what helps get to the next level, different definitions of the ‘noble disciple’. 3) Questions about citta – difference between citta and citta saṅkhāra, between mano and citta. 4) Jealously, loneliness, lack of love. 5) Ānāpānasati sutta – is it sequential, do we develop each step in every sitting? 6) Ajahn’s one word of advice. 7) Questions on identity and anattā.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-18 Commitment Is Necessary 57:03
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On the occasion of Vesak we are encouraged to make a commitment to training the heart. Then to steer the world of space and time we live in around that commitment. This is how actions (kamma) can build up helpful results and lead to the end of kamma.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-17 A Peaceful Abiding Is Possible 59:41
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We put energy into territory that can’t be under our sway, seeking security in systems and customs. What we do have sway over is this embodied mind. It can be trained to orient around wholesome qualities, and to realize that it’s most secure when clinging is released.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-17 Standing Meditation: Balance Is Conducive to Release 17:55
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The balance required in standing supports an uncontracted body. Lengthening, widening and deepening the somatic field, discordant energies, which may manifest as troubled moods, thoughts or impressions, can be ventilated and released.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-16 The Person Doesn’t Stop Clinging 59:04
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Clinging can’t be dealt with by the person. Meet it instead in the body where it manifests as stuck or numb places. Appropriate attention and the rhythm of breathing encourage constricted places to release, smoothing out the entire bodily field.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-16 Liberation through Non-Clinging 23:16
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Our reality is assembled from selected material that comes through the sense bases. As a result of craving and clinging, consciousness lands on particularly poignant material and continues the cycle of becoming and rebirth. Citta can be trained to handle material with dispassion rather than craving, awareness rather than clinging. The release of consciousness can be known.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-14 The Wisdom of Walking and of Sheepdogs 50:26
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There are 3 kinds of wisdom: discernment, skillful means and realization. Walking meditation and appropriate mindfulness are skillful means for cultivation. Together they bring around a stewarding akin to that of the sheepdog that moves within the flock, not outside it. This results in the deep harmony of samādhi.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-13 Guided Meditation: Sensitizing to the Direct Experience of the Body 55:21
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A guided meditation through the Ānāpānasati sutta. Establishing a comfortable, upright posture, incline awareness toward direct experience of the body. Sustain appropriate mindfulness and citta will sensitize to the qualities we call 'body’. This exercise resets the mind, which is then gladdened, steadied and cleared so that insight can develop.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-13 Samādhi – A Step Outside the Personal Footprint 57:01
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Samādhi is entered into dependent on the ripening of other factors. It gives us a place to stand outside of the personal perspective. The process of stepping out requires meeting the painful and unresolved in the body, then calming and soothing the heart.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-12 Making Use of the Power of Mindfulness 54:40
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Mindfulness is an empowered awareness that exerts authority over dukkha. Mindfulness doesn’t contract or become agitated by it. Holding steady and curtailing proliferation, it provides the proper laboratory within which wisdom can arise.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-12 Puja – A Daily Going Forth 11:26
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Puja provides an occasion to step out of our personal lives. The gesture of offering and dedicating trains citta to open rather than grasp. The unfolding of citta reveals awareness.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-12 Standing Meditation: Relieving Pressure with Ground and Space 21:40
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An important theme in mind cultivation is to relieve pressure – mental, emotional, physical. This is done through moderating the quality of ground and space. When these are sensed through the body, citta picks up their signs and relaxes its own pressure.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-11 Viriya – The Cultivation of Energy 54:49
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Energy has to be cultivated as a resource for practice. This process has three stages: gathering, specific application, and the strength that can release obstacles. The thinking mind uses energy but cannot generate it; energy is generated in the heart (citta) and in the body. Apply energy to empty out the negative and unskillful – the good and bright will arise on its own.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-10 Training in Direct Knowing 22:29
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Sati – mindfulness – is only mentioned once in the Ānāpānasati sutta. ‘Directly feeling and knowing’ – pajānati – is the mode of practice. When we’ve attuned to this, we move to ‘training’. This phase of ānāpānasati begins with training in deeper sensitivity of the entire body.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-10 Standing Meditation: Contemplate Inner and Outer Space 23:13
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Sensing the space beyond the skin boundary, and the space felt ‘within’ the body. The two can blend. In this way, they facilitate our experience of breathing.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-10 Wisdom as Know-How 55:45
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Wisdom is the know-how faculty that discerns suffering and its end. It knows how the 3 intelligences (verbal, emotional, bodily) can work together to bring about the stilling of saṇkhāras. From it noble knowledge – realization – arises.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-09 Don’t Take Saṁsāra Personally 52:32
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The 5 indriya are spiritual faculties that become activated by feeling them in the body. Starting with faith –the pivotal faculty for coming out of the personal and sensory realm – and culminating in wisdom – the ability to discern skillful from unskillful, non-stress from stress – these 5 indriya work to release the mind from the pressure of identity.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-07 Standing Meditation: Restraining the Mind So the Body Can Speak 22:51
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Placing one’s attention carefully and repeatedly into embodiment, listen to what manifests as body. Make the shift from conceiving of body to felt knowledge, from regarding body to being body. Clearing away what’s not needed and inviting what’s important, let the body speak and hear itself.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-07 Free Your Inner Dog 60:42
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We’re endowed with 3 kinds of intelligence: bodily, heart and verbal/thinking. The priority given to the thinking mind has numbed and shut down the body and heart. We train in direct knowing and primary sympathy to reawaken our deep intelligences.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-06 Standing Meditation: Appropriate Intentions and Attitudes 24:05
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Scanning over the body we are appropriately sensitive, naming and lingering with awareness. There’s a certain sensitive touch and the body responds with warmth and subtle energy. It’s a matter of placing attention with the right intention.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-06 Storing Up the Good 55:54
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Notice what one’s citta stores and brings out at potent moments. We tend to store the negative, and that which is most familiar becomes myself. Why not store the good? Store up qualities of the brahmavihāras – goodwill, compassion, gladness & equanimity – as energy in the body. These energetic effects are a resource for your long-lasting welfare.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-05 Open the Heart to the Beautiful and Good 1:17:50
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Cultivate the quality of intention rather than objects of attention. Intention is broader, it encompasses everything. Correct intention neither holds on, nor resists. The quality of anukampā – primary sympathy – from which mettā arises. Puja acts as an emblem, it resonates meanings that open the heart. Beyond the physical body or personal state, rise up to the sign of the beautiful, worthy, admirable and the good.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-05 Standing Meditation: Balance and Alignment Enable Letting Go 41:38
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A guided meditation to establish a balanced upright posture upon which the rest of the body can relax and let go. It may not do so quickly, so be patient with how the body actually is, always attending with a mind of sympathy and goodwill.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-05 Intention Is Primary, Attention Is Secondary 51:41
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Attention forms a focus that is by definition, only a part of the whole field (especially the visual focus). So if a ‘watchful’ focus is making your practice tense and try, relax attention and cultivate intention – it covers it all. Intention has a certain motivation, it steers attention. The intention for freedom from stress and pain is what citta is looking for.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Notes on Ānāpānasati 40:06
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Referring to the text, see what’s not there – there’s no mention of one-pointed attention. This is a common misunderstanding. Consider instead a one-pointed intention, to bear in mind, and return again and again to the process of breathing.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Where There Is No Faith There Is No Practice 38:27
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Fabricated formations, such as clock time, are useful for some things but not for liberation. Use the ritual of puja to transcend circumstantial reality; recognize there is a place in citta to stand outside of self – in faith and devotion. The belief that an end to suffering is possible is the initiator of Dhamma practice. Where there is no faith there is no practice.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Standing Meditation for Energy and Vitality 22:33
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When standing we don’t stand stiff, but fluid. Balanced posture and alignment allow muscles to release so energy can move through the form in a supportive way. Over time we become supported by the body’s energy rather than its muscles.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Do What Will Undo 49:51
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How to peel off the layers of saṅkhāra? Do with an intent to undo. Although we unconsciously give energy to our hindrances and programs, if we withdraw energy and interest, they wither. This is right effort. When citta is cleared of hindrances and is no longer pulled out into the abstract, it gains its own strength and you can trust it.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Breathing Forms the Body 14:34
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What is the body? Not the picture of it but the direct experience of it. Referring to instructions given in the Ānāpānasati Sutta, guidance is given to directly experience the body in its diverse manifestations of energy, feeling and sensation. Breathing in, breathing out, allow the process to occur at its own rate and stay with what’s unfolding for you.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Our Place of Practice Is Direct Knowing 39:34
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Dhamma practice is the channel for direct experience: that which is entered through the door of feeling. This is not the ‘mental’ knowing: the somatic sense responds to feeling. Your place of practice is this direct ‘feeling-knowing’ – pājānati – through mindfulness of the body.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Standing Meditation: Grounded and Firm, Yet Supple and Fluid 26:20
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A guided meditation to fully feel the body, filling out the length, width and thickness of the entire bodily form. This upright yet relaxed posture is firm and allows energy to freely flow.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Discharging Dukkha 56:53
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Residues of the heart empty into the body and its vitality gets clogged. We tend to recycle the damage, returning to the scene of the crime, trawling the residues that haven’t discharged as resentment, unworthy, the need to be something else. To discharge this dukkha, we use the somatic field, which gives an energetic release. A mind of goodwill – patient and loving acceptance – will ease the process.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-02 Using Body to Train the Mind 20:43
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The primary sense of settling doesn’t come from the mind but from embodiment. So, calm and soothe the somatic energies of the body by resonating the meanings of ‘safe’ and ‘welcome’. This is how one uses the body to train the mind, and aspiration to settle the body.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-07 Relational Dhamma 24:20
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Input given at the 2018 Beatenberg Meeting
Meditationszentrum Beatenberg
2018-12-04 47 Refuge Mantra Chant 5:34
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 46 Evening Chanting Pali 12:14
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 45 Morning Chanting English 10:22
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 44 Morning Chanting Pali 13:09
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 43 Dedication of Offerings and Vipassanabhumi chant 20:06
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-03 42 Closing: This Is Going to Hurt – Get Used to It 27:44
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Time on retreat can be intense, but strength and skills are gained when we can meet the difficulties of our lives. The encouragement is to sustain regular occasions of sitting with the Buddha. Prompts for review and reflection are offered.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-03 41 Brahmavihāra Follow Up 21:15
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Following up from the brahmavihāra guided meditation, the powerful potential of the practice is described. Taken in depth, these qualities offer a means for feeling steady and comfortable, a home base from which to clear fear mistrust and loss of heart.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-03 40 Guided Meditation: Brahmavihāras 56:09
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Cultivation of the brahmavihāras is based upon generating perceptions and felt senses through various bases. This guided meditation refers to the bodily and mental bases, in addition to primary sympathy – anukampa – as the underlying basis, to bring these boundless qualities into fullness. They then can serve as soothing orientations within the tribulations of this human realm.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-02 39 Q&A 45:43
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How does one maintain one’s center in the world? What are the 8 worldly “winds” and how to relate to them? What do we ask forgiveness for from Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha in evening chanting? How to balance energy between personal practice and moral duty to respond to suffering in the world?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-02 38 Release 46:33
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Practicing for release follows the trajectory of knowing (ñāṇa) and culminates in realization (aññā). We review the aggregates with dispassion, recognizing their causal basis, and stop taking them to be self. Devotional practices support the shift from self-consciousness to trackless consciousness where self, other, future, past are no longer concocted. This is the turning towards the deathless.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-01 37 Passing of Difficult Feeling 54:54
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The inability to feel difficult emotions causes closure of heart and body. If things haven’t been allowed to arise, they don’t pass. Using the practice of calming and insight, we calm just enough to make difficult feeling manageable and let it move through the body, then apply the skill of insight to look into just this experience without proliferation. Dispassion, clarity, and a wide attentive heart remain.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-30 36 Q&A 35:05
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Relationship of tanha to chanda. How to arouse urgency for someone whose sankharas are geared more toward on desire? How to contemplate kamma as an object? How does wholesome “becoming” (bhava) happen?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-30 35 This Dhamma Is for Elimination of Stress 44:33
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[Citing from AN4:171] The ignorance that underlies volition conditions our ways of perceiving and being. As a result we bring stress and pressure into our bodies, hearts and minds. We train to come out of this by moderating attention and gentle persistence to everyday tasks. Communing with nature is also a resource.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-29 34 Q&A 3:30
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Is mano essentially the same as citta sankhara;? Is there awareness besides sense consciousness? Clarification between sati/mindfulness and citta. Is mindfulness of body necessary for liberation, why? Difference between circumstances and conditions; how to “eradicate” self-view.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-29 33 Resetting Your World 55:48
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Referring to the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta, The Honeyball, (MN18), Ajahn Sucitto describes a two-fold training to get a handle on and curtail mental proliferation. Citta can be trained through deliberate attention to starve afflictive intentions, and to instead establish pāramī tendencies towards renunciation, clarity and patience.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-28 32 Ajahn’s Advice - Play More 51:12
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The Buddha’s instructions for gladdening the mind are not to be skimmed over. Without qualities such as gladness and appreciation we approach practice through the highly conditioned, self-conscious personality. Gladdening must directly touch the citta which cannot be reached through the rational mind or personality. Ajahn suggests accessing citta through imagination and play.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-26 31 Body - The Last Outpost of Sanity 55:10
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The experience of the aggregates doesn’t have to lead to suffering. Addressing the form aggregate of body, Ajahn Sucitto describes ways it teaches us, purifies the heart and mind, and can act as a source of refuge for our long-lasting welfare and benefit.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge

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