Guided meditation

The practice of avoiding extremes also means experiencing a sense of balance. It's not about becoming and not about denying, but contemplating phenomena.

Mindfulness of these four areas: body, sensitivity, heart and emotional and psychological phenomena prevent us from being deluded.

Ajahn investigates the steps of dependent co-arising. Second part of the two-part talk.

Understanding the nature of our field of attention, our intentions and our awareness provides for an adjustment of this three-part operating system.

00.36 Q1 I'm very new to meditation. Could you say more about sitting, about posture. 8.12 Q2 If I compare my practice to an elevator I seem to spend a lot of time at the top and would like to go deeper but I'm always going back up to the top again, up and down. 14.36 Q3 Having projects and things that I want to do that require determination, is that incompatible with a meditation practice? 18.35 Q4 My family have been football fans and have supported the Tottenham Hotspurs club for ages. What can you say about this? 21.32 Q5 What guidance can you give on engaging with conflict? 28.47 Q5 What can I do if the values of my friends and acquaintances don't fit with mine? 30.42 Q6 Regarding stream entry, do path and fruit happen simultaneously or does one come after the other?

This is the epitome of the Buddha's practice. As we practise abandoning our holding on to anything, we can learn how this 'need to hold' is a normal but subversive aspect of our experience.

Questions are précised and read into the file.This text is shortened further. 00.51 Q1 You said we create an imaginary world for our imaginary selves. Some people believe in the power of visualization where we can imagine a better world or a better self. 03.05 Q2 Please distinguish consciousness, the mind and the brain. 05.57 Q3 You use the word heart, but you don't use the word brain. 12.36 Q4 If there's no distinction between you and I, is there just a oneness? 13.00 Q5 Is the citta permanent? 14.13 Q6 A friend said her response to a car alarm was the same as her response to bird song. Where is the place for beauty in this? 15.29 Q7 In walking meditation, do we feel the movement and sense what your mind is doing with that experience? 21.28 Q8 Some thought patterns seem like some kind of karmic knot. They're not comfortable and yet I keep going into them. 25.08 Q9 What can I offer my dying friend to support balance for them? 32.20 Q10 Can thoughts just arise randomly? 37.02 Q11 If someone cheats us, do we just forgive them and move on? 41.18 Q12 I find that many of my interactions, conversations and what I do to work seem to be just abstractions and distractions. My desire to live more in dhamma makes me avoid people without this interest. 46.58 Q13 Do thoughts always arise from feelings? 50.03 Q14 What is time as an experience? 01.00.57 Q15 Where does collective consciousness fit into this? 01.03.09 Q16 How can we plan for the future and avoid the pitfalls of 'becoming'? 01.04.52 Q17 How to use Buddhist practice to deal with trauma and serious anxiety? 01.10.10 Q18 Is the teaching of no satisfaction /suffering more than 'there's no permanent satisfaction'? 01.13.34 Q19 It seems like the more I examine my own suffering, the more compassion I have for other people.

Finding balance means bringing our life-energies - thinking, emotions and embodied presence – into an even balance.

Mental balance is extremely precarious given the world of pushing and pulling that we live in. Finding and stabilizing presence in the eye of this hurricane can take time, but it's possible.

Establishing, reflecting on and enjoying the fruits of cultivation is an ongoing heart process.

Ajahn investigates the steps of dependent co-arising. First part of a two-part talk.

The aim of cultivation is the release from the stress, craving, and fear that sense consciousness creates.

Wisdom is a liberator that is supported by the sense of a stable center that develops with samadhi.

Retreat is a renunciant experience recommended by the Buddha. Through this we can clarify and collect our centre.

Our ability to contemplate provides enormous potential to get perspective on the changingness of the forms that characterise experience.

The faith that there IS a way out is an important component of our practice, leading to a directly known heart-realization of the truth of the constant flux of experience.

The relative harmony of the diverse forms and energies that arise on retreat give one a sense of personal wholeness and support shared benefits.

Gathering and collecting into one pointedness takes time for settling. A retreat invites us; it leads us to gain purpose and engenders faith and skilful effort.

The Buddha’s teaching is crucial and profound for the world. It points to the clinging and owning that disfigures our world – and how to give that up.

00:42 Q1 How can one protect one’s axis/ centre after a retreat is over? 11:55 In daily life my system gets stuck in a previous experience with someone. Although they have left, the turmoil is still there and I feel stuck.