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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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2018-11-25 30 Q&A 1:13:38
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Translation of vipassana bhumi chant; clarificiation around sutta passage that asserts that a female could never become a Buddha; why we chant the Refuge Mantra 9 times; questions around working with perception; skillful contemplation of independence; taking pleasure from food; how to recognize and clear blocked energy in the body
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-25 29 Returning to Center 53:17
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Citta takes the five khandhå as truth, placing faith in them to be reliable and satisfying. The Buddha likened them to murderous thieves, not trustworthy. Truth is found in our center, not the peripherals. This is where our liberation potential lies.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-24 28 The Luminous Citta 27:56
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The aggregates themselves are not problematic, it’s our blind, desperate clinging to them that causes suffering. It’s possible for citta to radiate into the aggregates and into our lives. First what’s needed is the act of withdrawing into a place of refuge to collect and gather. Then the act of integration, bringing qualities of calm, kindness, resolve into our spee
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-23 27 Don’t Go into Things until You Can Stay Out of Them 41:53
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We need firm ground to stand on before meeting the difficulties of our lives. Without that firm place, the difficulties don’t unravel –you unravel. With cultivation of the five spiritual faculties – indriyas – they become rock solid, enabling us to stand back from experience and allow it to unravel and pass.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-22 26 Fields as a Way of Experiencing Phenomena 16:45
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In a field of experience, qualities that are assumed to be other people, entities or myself because of the way they’re stuck together can be seen as specific factors that are pliable and flexible. “Field awareness” means a wider span of attention where suppressed, unnoticed, unresolved energies can arise and be discharged, purifying the bodily field.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-22 25 What Sustains a Steady Heart Energy? 49:41
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Compulsive problematic activations can be replaced with conscious deliberate ones aimed at liberation. Whether in daily activities or in the action of meditation, we can steady and calm energy by orienting around skillful signs – generosity, service, clarity – until the mind is comforted and no longer flowing down old tracks.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-22 24 Place Attention Directly on the Here and Now 29:37
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There is a different way to meet what arises rather than through our conditioned perceptions, one free of self, other people, the future. Place attention on what’s arising directly as it is.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-21 23 Ānāpānasati – A Model for Cultivation and Freedom 53:34
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In the search for happiness, we generally only experience the search, marked by discomfort or desperation. Relationship is key. The instructions for ānāpānasati train us to develop a more dispassionate relationship where we learn to stand in the presence of, or witness from, the edge of experience. From here the right kind of relationship, marked by non-expectation and non-aversion, can be cultivated.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-19 22 Leave Space for Miracles 54:00
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The cultivation of samatha is to be able to direct one’s intentions and attention away from the afflictive activations, settling into a place where they’re not happening. This place of cooling and ceasing is to be lingered in. Here we come out of the personality and into the realm of the miraculous.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-18 21 Standing Meditation: Where There Is No Activation in the Body 40:13
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The theme of this meditation is to move attention from more activated areas to parts that have no activation at all. Beginning with the sense of balance and cohesion, guidance is provided to sense through the entire body, sustaining a soft attitude with no time frame, a quality of very little effort.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-18 20 Review of Four Points for Orientation 42:29
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A review of the four points recommended to orient around: 1) The sacred - virtue and truth, 2) other people, 3) the subtle body/body energies, 4) nature. These are means for becoming more embodied and heartful, and regaining our natural intelligence.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-17 18 Brahmavihara Cultivation for a Happy Abiding 47:27
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The qualities of goodwill, compassion, gladness and equanimity can be cultivated to generate a subtle form, a subtle state of consciousness. Abiding and lingering in these qualities, citta sustains consciousness in that mode, sees objects in that light, and experiences itself in that light making human life manageable, fruitful, enjoyable.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-17 19 Q&A 62:17
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How to clear stuck sankharas (greed/overeating, fear); clarifying samatha, vipassana, samādhi; clarifying language: rūpa, nāma-rūpa
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-16 17 Intention and Effort 63:58
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Take away the track of conditioned intentions – better, more efficient, goal orientation. Learn to sense into the intention of the citta here and now. Effort informed by the spiritual faculties is a means to stave off hindrances. The first right effort is to dwell in what is skillful.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-16 16 Nothing Works - Get Used to It 61:13
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Our conditioning and underlying programs have us aiming at unattainable benchmarks. We come to believe it’s possible to make everything work, make things efficient, clear, comfortable. But this only sets us up for suffering. So we practice to purify intention and attention, widening the range of what our citta can bear with and accommodate. We’re then able to be with the uncomfortable without suffering.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-15 15 Learning to Cultivate Relationship 61:41
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We can learn to relate to the conditioned world with a sense of knowing it doesn’t work, dealing with the inevitable clashes and frictions with a mind that is spacious, that can digest the chafing. Nourish and strengthen citta through qualities of goodwill, patience and acceptance facilitate disengagement. Then the heart is not troubled by things not going its way.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-14 14 Sangha Heals Afflictions of Exclusion 50:17
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With devotional practices we choose to direct ourselves in terms of awakening. Pūjā gives the occasion to settle in our Refuge quality rather than our personal kamma. This is the way we build up a reference point to cultivate and clear the kamma of the person within the field of sangha.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-14 13 Soothing and Steadying Body Energies 53:33
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The deeply ingrained reactivity to jump from unpleasant feeling is saṇkhāra. We leave the richness and intelligence of embodiment for the virtual world of programs and drives. Steadying and stabilizing the bodily energies with ānāpānasati develops a different kind of saṇkhāra, one that responds to phenomena with non-demand and acceptance.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-12 12 Nourishing the Citta 47:31
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Creating a feedback loop to keep citta refreshed and nourished strengthens our ability to meet the uncomfortable. This can’t be done through the virtual realm of the intellect; take time every day to touch into bodily presence without adjusting anything or turning away. That steady presence becomes the place of regeneration and refreshment.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-11 11 Q&As 53:17
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Q1: ways of strengthening the citta; Q2 31:37 How can one best work with the citta? Q3 34:01 What is the relationship of intuitive awareness to the citta? Q4 36:56 Could you say something more about the sacred? Q5 40:10 greed and aversion – are they two sides of the same coin? Can one exist without the other? Q6 46:46 What is animita (signless) samādhi as opposed to nimitta samādhi or jhāna?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-11 10 Weaning the Citta from Clinging 63:27
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The habit of clinging stems from a search for safety and security, yet we cling to that which can never provide security. It’s not easy to give up clinging, so an inner strengthening is required – energetically, psychologically and emotionally.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-11 09 Guided Meditation: Feeling Grounded and Safe in the Space 40:02
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Before reviewing the themes that present themselves to us in meditation, we need the support of safety and ground. Guidance is provided to establish center, ground and safety in this embodiment.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-11 08 Resourcing the Faculty of Heart, Our Responsive Capacity 58:10
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Phenomena that are mutable, not solid, and dependently arisen become experienced as fixed and solid by unconscious grasping and holding on. The relationship is then one of fixation. A more mature relationship is not based on eliminating displeasure but on responsiveness and flexibility. With practice one can feel comfortable with things that are uncomfortable.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-10 07 Intention - a Property of Citta 31:53
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Meditation practice instructs us to sustain harmonious relationship with our minds, bodies and the world – to not be dominating, not to grasp or push away, but to be present. Sometimes an open accepting awareness, rather than a focus on a particular object, is the proper mode. When mental and body energies are in sync there’s a sense of harmony and unification. This is samādhi.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-10 06 Walking Instructions: Human Bodies Walk Like This 12:46
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Our walking gets programmed by the drives of the mind. Whatever affects the mind affects the nervous system of the body – the body shows us the effects of our thinking. Walking meditation can return us to the natural quality of the body, so the mind can relax.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
In collection: A Moving Balance
2018-11-09 05 The Wisdom Faculty 52:10
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The search for happiness, security and steadiness binds us in a tangle of stressful and unsatisfactory experiences – because we’re looking in the wrong place. Wisdom/discernment helps us detangle and discern what to set aside and what is worth bearing in mind.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-08 04 Calm and Discernment Work in Tandem 20:02
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Discernment helps filter from the amalgam of experience what’s skillful now. Having picked up what is skillful one lingers in it, dwells in it, sustains it. This is calming. So skim off stressful habits of “trying to make it work”, “getting on to the next”. Use the body to learn what the mind is happy to linger in.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-08 03 Regaining Our Natural Intelligence 37:28
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In meditation both the topic and the manner in which we attend can help train our mode of mental engagement. Shifting from stressful tendencies of “making it happen” and “getting it right”, come back to the natural body. This living system is the source for a steady, safe and easeful state.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-07 02 Going for Refuge - Reorientation of Citta 58:37
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What is it that we need to take Refuge from? The poisons of greed, hatred and delusion that mask themselves and corrupt our hearts and minds. This requires reorienting from worldly ways and orienting around what has value and meaning, that which you can trust: virtue, embodiment, nature and other people.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-07 01 Setting up the Relational Context of Dhamma 22:24
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Four compass points to orient around while on retreat: how you relate to the earth, to other people, to your body and to the sacred; an explanation of pūjā – recollections and making offerings, as with the offering of food.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-10-15 21 Day 6 Closing talk: The Smallest Unit in the Cosmos is Two 32:38
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When we reflect on the nature of fields, we notice everything is a duality. How we relate in this twosome is the practice. Unskillful latent tendencies are revealed in relationship, giving us an opportunity to clear them. Kalyāṇamitta (spiritual friendship) is essential. It’s only others that can show us what we don’t see in ourselves.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-14 20 Day 5 Evening Puja: Wilderness Training 25:00
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We struggle for certainty and clarity, but the true orientation of Dhamma is disorientation from old maps, thereby allowing forms to arise and change with disengaged attention. Then we’re much more alert and agile. This is wilderness training.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-14 19 Day 5 Morning Instructions: Maps that Dispel Differentiation 53:22
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The Buddha expounded Dhamma using various maps. The map of the khandhā and dependent origination provide means for understanding and responding to experience without the sense of a fixed self. Meeting and relating to phenomena in the body, free from aversion and resistance, you don’t have to like it, just accept it. This is the way out of suffering.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-14 18 Day 5 Guided Meditation Intention – a Softer Effort 46:47
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Using intention in practice means there is a wish, a prayer, an aspiration – subtle movements of energy rather than the push of effort. If we use intention too forcefully we block receptivity. It’s up to us to determine what’s skillful at this time. Perhaps it’s the intention to relax, set aside, widen, soften. Wisdom is our guide, and effort is just to use wisdom to arrive at deeper wisdom. [8:15 Begin Standing Meditation Instructions] Translating Anatomical Descriptions into Felt Sense: We all use anatomical descriptions of the body as a sketch, but the encouragement in this meditation is to translate them into energetic or felt experiences. Beginning with physical experience, guidance is provided to sense into subtler energies and felt tones and meanings.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-14 17 Day 5 Morning Puja: Lingering 54:42
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Beginning our day, we make the intention to enter the Dhamma field before entering the hallucinatory field constructed of time and space. Refrain from what’s not needed, linger in what’s needed. What you linger with increases. If you linger in the world of suppositions - ‘got to do, should do’- that increases. Find out what’s truly needed and linger there.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-13 16 Day 4 Evening Puja: Q&A 67:49
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Different ways of presenting Dhamma in Theravada Buddhism (single-pointed, ‘dry insight’; Thai forest). Are there certain thought patterns that are related to nervous energy in the body? How do you do discharge? Metta practice as cultivating non-aversive, non-contractive state rather than a doing/sending out. Clarifying the term ‘fields’. Qi Gong questions (is it normal to get so hot while practicing Qi Gong? Is it good to use wu qi for standing meditation?); Responding to sexual awareness in the presence of others. Skillfully handling trauma that are still alive. Distinction between perception and consciousness. How feelings and emotions are experienced in Samadhi. Reclining meditation
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-13 15 Day 4 Qi Gong 9:17
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Ajahn Sucitto responds to a question about how he got started with Qi Gong.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-13 14 Day 4 Guided Meditation: Goodwill 23:27
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Citta is moved by images that can be sparked by thought, visual, auditory or somatic/felt experience. This guided meditation accesses these portals to generate receptivity and resonances of goodwill within yourself, then spread them out.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-13 13 Day 4 Morning Instructions: Heart Yoga 48:49
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Relationship is always necessary, always there, whether with other people or with ourselves. To absorb into comfortable relationship, and clear this area from greed, hatred and fear, there has to be a lot of negotiation, the back and forth movement of disengaging, then returning again. This is true yoga of the heart. To keep the heart flexible and responsive, brahmavihārā ‘asanas’ are suggested.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-13 12 Day 4 Morning Puja: Think Short, Listen Long 22:31
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Instruction on disengaging attention from mental contact. Disengagement allows for longer listening time. The quality of listening has a different tone – softer, more open, the ability to be with but not in. That non-engaged space allows for signs of comfort, contentment and gladness to arise. It’s not in the object but in the relationship. Keep re-establishing relationship to the chosen object.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-12 11 Day 3 Evening Puja: Learning to Prefer Dispassion 63:01
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In citta’s maturing process, it goes from seeking stability and comfort in things that can never satisfy, to finding a place of dispassion. It learns that disengagement is preferable to getting fired up, disappointed, humiliated. In this letting go it finally finds the stability and happiness it has been seeking.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-12 10 Day 3 Standing Meditation: Turning in Space 33:41
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After settling and grounding in the standing position, Ajahn Sucitto introduces a slight movement to the posture. Gently turning in space, noticing the effects of the body moving in its energy field, making note of the mental tone – how’s that?
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-12 09 Day 3 Morning instructions: The Dhamma Field – Our True Home 54:54
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We take things personally, but the person is the result of the fields that it encounters. We get shaped by the worldly fields of the business model, of material progress, of ‘faster’ and ‘more’. When we take the Dhamma field as our true origin rather than the worldly or personal field, we access the arising of the search for truth and meaning, and of the capacities to bear with and be accepting, to experience gratitude and generosity. This is our home, and in this we are deeply resourced to meet what comes up.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-12 08 Day 3 Morning Puja: Immersion in the Dhamma Field 25:48
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Being immersed in worldly and personal fields is not a choice, but we can choose to immerse ourselves in the Dhamma field. In it we can meet the problematic painful field of sense contact without collapsing or blocking, but with big heart. Pūjā is an occasion for entering into that field, gaining resources, strength and happiness for the journey.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-11 07 Day 2 Evening Puja: Don’t Follow the Bounce 63:19
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Cultivating Dhamma involves viveka, a certain kind of disengagement primarily from thought and emotional reactivity. As these reactions are running, check their ‘bounce’ – that tendency to deflect or suppress unpleasant feeling. Emotion by itself cannot discharge, but access the emotional state in the body – the body can discharge the emotion.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-11 06 Day 2 Pausing before “the Next” 8:20
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Transitions points are an opportunity to train one’s reflexes to return to the base – the ground as fundamental orientation. At the moment of reflexive response, pause. The reflex isn’t good or bad, just pause and check it as a habit of training. It can be helpful to rise into a bodily response rather than habit reactive responses. Whatever our intention or purpose can be more measured.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-11 05 Day 2 Morning Instructions: Bear in Mind – You’re a Threesome 61:50
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The verbal, heart and body fields are mutually affected. Of the three, body doesn’t lie and is the one that can discharge stress. Refer to how experiences of the heart and mind arise in the body with disengaged awareness. Learn to release stress when it arises, and acknowledge the patterns of behavior that generate it. [52:00 Begin Walking Instructions] Notice the Parts that Don’t Seem to Be Doing: The whole body is walking. Some parts are doing, some are receiving – they’re part of the field of awareness and sensitivity. The parts that don’t seem to be doing are helping to discharge stress.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-11 04 Standing Meditation: Standing to Promote Energy Movement 17:45
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Use the standing form to establish alignment in an upright posture that allows energy to move through stuck places. [10:27 transition to sitting posture]
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-11 03 Day 2 Pāli Pronunciation 15:01
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Ajahn Sucitto provides an overview of Pāli pronunciation to aid with chanting. [5:00 Begin Morning Chanting]
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-11 02 Day 2 Morning Puja: Recollection and Chanting 48:07
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We can use pūjā and chanting as a means for connecting with the heart in a meaningful way, to recollect values in a slowed down process of mind: What am I rising up to? Inclining towards? What’s important for me? The Buddhist convention is to recollect the Triple Gem – drop below personhood to something more fundamental and universal.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-10-10 01 Day 1 Opening: An Attitude of Practice Rather than a System 47:16
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Rather than rely on a system, cultivate an attitude towards practice. Systems have uses, but can eventually curtail what we’re trying to drop into. Part of the theme of this retreat is about recognizing some of the stressful systems that get built into our minds around speed and progress – and awakening out of them. [24:06 Begin Guided Meditation] Establishing Ground and Space through Breathing: We can use the body as a channel to settle the mind. Use the out-breath to ground, use the in-breath to lift. These two together give you a form with a distinct foundation and uprightness to it.
New York Insight Meditation Center :  Entering the Dhamma Fields: A Five Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2018-07-25 The Practice of Inclusivity 54:19
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Ajahn Sucitto describes how our external and internal worlds come to be built upon exclusion. He encourages us to give up the exhausting endeavor of excluding the uncomfortable and to meet the suffering of the 1st Noble Truth instead. Suffering is met and released through embodied presence with all that arises.
Cambridge Insight Meditation Center
2018-07-23 23 Closing Exhortation: Being Is First, Doing Is Second 27:58
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As soon as something comes to mind, the impulse is to do something about it. This is just blind. The most important piece is be something first. It shouldn’t take that long, just 10 seconds. Even if being something is being aware of confusion, aware of dukkha, drop into the center of your reactivity. Then awakened intelligence has the possibility to arise in the pause.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-22 22 The Comfort Place Is Here 57:24
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The end of retreat provides the occasion to experience endings and separation. Check the tendency to rush into the future, the desire to get out of the uncomfortable and move towards the comfort zone. These boundaries of entering something unknown are important places to pause and notice what’s happening. The comfort place is here, don’t leave it. Feel the disturbances, and meet them with mindful and loving acceptance.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-21 19 Careful Thinking to Be Cultivated for Wisdom and Release 37:44
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Used wisely thinking supports liberation. Through wise reflection we begin to understand the views and attitudes that give rise to afflictive thinking. But through patiently resisting acting on these creations, it’s possible to gain authority over one’s mind, rather than be caught in worldly currents.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-21 20 Wisdom: Detox for the Heart 59:10
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One of the roles of wisdom is to continually check the toxic influences and open to what is here naturally. The unconditioned can be found through wise reflection and handling of the uncertain and unresolvable nature of conditioned experience. When we no longer resist it or feel agitated by it, the mind is released. The mind released shines in its own luminosity and that radiance gives the heart back its strength.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-21 21 Q&A 61:55
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Working with sexual energy (0:08); social justice in line with Dhamma (15:20); mindfulness, thinking, speaking & listening (35:03)
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-20 18 Appropriate Attention: Comfortably Held rather than Witnessed 57:39
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The way we direct and hold attention either regenerates afflictive self-forming tendencies or decreases them. By relaxing attention and taking in qualities that give rise to ease and gladness, the body is more comfortable and the mind is happy.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-19 16 Right Effort: How to Strive without Getting a Hernia 55:13
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The Buddha crossed the floods of ignorance, sensuality and becoming by not halting and not straining. The right effort of finding ground in the body is a means for balancing and moderating energy and effort.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-19 17 Walking Instructions: Staying in Flow 4:20
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As we walk, we’re moving through the aggregates, through the field of mind as it opens with its senses of urgency, discord, worry. Sustain mobile mindfulness, walking through your psychological and emotional ‘weather’.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-18 13 Guided Meditation: Disengaged Awareness 39:52
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We’re not having an experience, we are an experience. An experience that’s changing, that’s affected. Allowing content to arise and manifest generates spaciousness and eases the sense of self.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-18 14 Allowing Innate Intelligence to Arise 55:03
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Two kinds of reflexes occur in the flow of experience: not knowing what to do and knowing what to do. Both are subject to suffering. Recognize that within experience there is an innate intelligence, clarity, refuge if we allow it to arise. Doing is guesswork; being is clearer.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-18 15 Q&A: I Don’t Answer Questions I Respond to People 68:00
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Ajahn Sucitto reflects on questions posed about breathing, how to engage with the felt sense, heedfulness vs mindfulness, metta practice and cultivating an open heart
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-17 11 You Don’t Stop Craving, You Stop Believing in It 68:20
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The mind is a dynamic process with a certain familiarity to it that seems to reiterate and get stuck in wanting and not wanting. Liberation from this begins with not getting involved with, tussling with or pandering to the habit of craving.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-17 12 Guided Meditation: The Felt Sense of the Body 21:31
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Awareness is a centering place. Not pushing away, not taking a position. It’s a reference point. Rest and remain present to the experiences and expressions of the heart.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-16 07 Posture and Breath for Chanting 21:21
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Chanting begins with opening the belly, chest and throat. Posture and relaxation help clear blocked areas so the heart tone of chanting can vibrate and deepen through the body. [9:50 – 21:30 breathing and voice exercises]
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-16 08 Guided Meditation: Soothing Nervous Energy Through Breathing and Body 24:17
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A comprehensive guided meditation to bring gentle, full awareness to all of the parts of the body, creating connections across them. In this connected state, body channels can open allowing for energy flow and discharge.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-16 09 Don’t Resist the Disorientation Experience 53:01
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On retreat there can be disorientation – new people, place, restrictions that weren’t there before. Disorientation is a tough medicine, but we use it to meet the boundary of the habitual self with its instinct to ‘make things go my way'. Stay with the discomfort, so that the mind changes direction: to the settled ground, through the body.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-16 10 Discerning Your Way Through Systems 13:33
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One of the fundamental obstacles for unawakened beings is the attachment to systems and customs. Rather than a habit of a system or technique in meditation, rely on organic human intelligence. Discern what is skillful and unskillful, necessary and unnecessary. Keep paring away what’s not needed and dwell in what remains. Something is waiting to meet you – a certain stillness and firmness of the spirit.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-15 02 Clearing Toxins of the Heart Through Body 60:26
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The heart and mind are susceptible to toxins that drive action and infect intention. In the body we find a trustworthy orientation – a reliable source for knowing how it is now.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-15 03 Standing Meditation: The Body Seeks Harmony 28:50
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Guidance to help the body come into natural harmony. Notice the effects ground, space and breathing in the body. When the body feels safe, the skin boundary loosens and armor comes off.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-15 04 Walking Instructions: Can You Move without a “There”? 7:36
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Our walking is generally to get “there,” which carries with it a certain quality of distress. Instead, try walking without a “there”. Check the mental constructions of destination- including a ‘spiritual’ one - instead pay attention to how the body walks. It’s more peaceful that way!
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-15 05 Guided Meditation: Where Do I Find Meaning? 32:43
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Take a simple word or theme and bring it into the heart. Holding it, sensing it and asking what’s most meaningful? When you take the word into your heart, what happens?
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-15 06 Using Thought for Recollection 38:20
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Dhamma practice is generally marked by a tangle of thoughts. But thought can be used for recollection. Taking words into the heart, we consider what has meaning, what serves as refuge, setting distractions aside.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-14 01 Precepts: Something You Can Always Do 15:35
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You can’t always “do” pleasant mindstates or an easeful body. Precepts are always available to enact as a way of practice.
Madison Insight Meditation Group :  Madison Vipassana Retreat: A Detox for the Heart
2018-07-02 24 Closing: Unfolding Your Dhamma Field and Carrying It Within 20:45
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We entered retreat as “personal packages” that unfolded into a collective field of Dhamma. This field has immense capacity to hold wholesome potencies beyond the world of space and time. We can continue to enrich and access this field after leaving the retreat form as support for our ongoing Dhamma practice.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-07-02 23 Guided Meditation: Distilling and Dwelling in Your Dhamma Potential 24:34
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Imagining there is only an hour left to live, recollect what has been meaningful and of value. The word just acts as the suitcase, then we have to open it and get a feeling for it in the heart and body.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-07-01 22 Q&A: Relational Snags, Power of Resolve, Liberation from Clinging 1:10:53
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Why did you become a monk; the place of women in this lineage; relational snags; strengthening pāramīs; what survives death; stream entry; identifying is another word for clinging; responses to the group process exercises
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-07-01 21 The Skill of Thinking: Allowing the Heart to Speak 58:11
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Instructions for restraining the human tendency to dominate. Learning to set up the right relationship and allow experience to speak for itself. Only after the truth is spoken can there be silence.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-07-01 20 “About to”: The Moment of Becoming 8:29
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Training to notice the point when the “I am” is born. Allowing a fresh response. Learning to follow, not lead.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-07-01 19 Standing Meditation: Opening to Feeling 18:33
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Getting a sense of the tones that arise in the body. Don’t act immediately, awareness is open and non-intrusive. Noticing the tendencies towards favoring and opposing.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-30 18 Comfortable or Ignorant? Choose Dhamma 53:57
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One thing to keep in mind about wilderness training: you’re never ready, but that’s how you cultivate pāramīs. Stay in touch with your Dhamma field and you’ll always be ready to meet the uncomfortable.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-30 17 Pūjā: The Occasion for Refuge 18:05
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Through pūjā we take refuge not in a world of time and structure but in what the mind knows. We take refuge in knowing the heart can open to suffering.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-29 16 Disengaging the Self - the First Right Effort 59:46
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When we make effort to disengage and avoid the unskillful, we enter the Dhamma domain, the domain of patience, clarity, sensing. Then the Dhamma potencies, not self, naturally do the work of untangling the self-saṇkhāras.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-29 15 Guided Meditation: Breathing In Healing Energies 22:57
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There is an innate interest in the body to release itself. If we can meet what arises with the right kind of invitation – a mind of goodwill, patience and trust – breathing will act as a messenger and carry these qualities into the body. These then act as healing energies.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-29 14 Pāramī - Embodying Truth 13:19
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Pāramī are described as qualities that extend and further. When cultivated, they provide steadiness to cross over the field of dukkha and confusion into the transcendent plane of Dhamma.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-28 13 Guided Meditation: Everything Unfolds from the Center 8:15
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Establish and maintain core presence through the upright axis. Keep your tap root firmly rooted in your Dhamma field and resist the temptation to move out into what arises. Just by not getting stuck in what arises weakens the power of difficulties. [Instructions end 8:08]
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-28 12 Q&A: Negotiating Contact & Gladdening the Mind 51:35
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Negotiating contact; gladdening the mind; the meaning of spirit; spiritual powers; consciousness creating duality; advice for Dhamma teachers; transmuting sexual energy; what is sampajañña; jhāna training
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-28 11 Massaging the Closed Heart 62:11
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Our self tends to get patterned and established by what is familiar and repeated. For most, it means being shaped and formed by negative accumulations that constrict and close the heart. Using the body-mind connection we can massage in the internal body back to life, not through words but through wholesome felt sense perceptions.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-28 10 Standing Meditation: Skillful Use of Perceptions 22:40
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After attuning to the subjective experience of the back, guidance is provided to use perceptions as a means for generating comfort and relaxation.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-27 09 The Craft of Meditation 18:06
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There are various tools and forms for meditation, but most important is our relationship to these: right intention, not too much effort, allowing the natural arising of experience.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-27 08 Careful Attention to the Wilderness of Self 58:54
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Our self can become extremely busy seeking safety and comfort, acceptance and inclusion. Use the body to ground this agitated energy – embodiment is the ground we reflexively seek.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-27 07 Standing Meditation: Include It All 14:01
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Instructions for coming into the bodily sense through ground, upright posture and space.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-27 06 Guided Meditation: Holding the Field Beneath Self-View 17:11
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What’s there when self-view is released? Beneath the grip of self-view is the intention to welcome and include it all. Intentionality comes before attention.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-26 05 Dhamma: The Liberation Field 39:05
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What arises in our fields is based on what’s been intended and activated. We become overwhelmed by the persistent activations of control, pressure, separateness. Accessing our Dhamma field gives rise to that which seeks balance, harmony, and that which seeks the welfare of all.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-26 04 Entering the Fields with Faith 60:27
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Citta is affected by what we take in from our fields. Generally overwhelmed with afflictive effects, there is a point when we can stop and open in the midst of affliction and bring forth faith. The 5 spiritual faculties then have authority over the 5 sense faculties, imbuing the heart with wholesome qualities.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-26 03 Aspiration: To Train in the Wilderness 36:22
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Ajahn Sucitto compares Dhamma practice to wilderness training – attention is not so driven, and there’s a global awareness. He suggests ways of fortifying and strengthening our practice to meet afflictions of the heart.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-25 02 Guided Meditation: Sitting at the Root of a Tree 26:29
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Instructions to establish a grounded, upright posture for meditation and for using breathing to strengthen energy.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-06-25 01 Heart Offerings 33:36
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The occasion for retreat gives opportunity to establish a field of integrity and make heart offerings by taking precepts, chanting, making offerings to the shrine, and bowing.
Insight Retreat Center :  Dhamma-fields Dhamma-nature
2018-04-30 Closing Comments 11:36
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It’s natural for us to step out of our daily scenarios from time to time and take a break from suffering. Ask: “What’s most important now?” Find the hidden grooves that move towards destinations that don’t exist – permanence, sustained agreeable feeling, being in control – and establish ground in embodied awareness instead.
London Insight Meditation :  Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality

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