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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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2018-07-21 19 Careful Thinking to Be Cultivated for Wisdom and Release 37:44
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
2018-04-30 A suggested exercise 4:41
Watching a tree or a bush for 30 minutes notice how the object forming tendencies start to wear out and the experience is of something …. unnamed.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-30 Refining One’s Ability to Notice 35:02
It’s possible for citta to review the 5 aggregates, not be stuck in them. Practice with sustaining a quality of awareness that’s open and receptive to shifting and changing. This awareness can be applied to your world.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-29 The Experience of Consciousness (with 15 min standing) 26:50
Exploring the experience of consciousness and noting what occurs – through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. Includes 15 min standing meditation.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-29 Elements of a Meditation Model 47:52
Distinguishing dukkha as a characteristic and dukkha as a Noble Truth. Relax – nothing is under control. Acknowledging this is the start of a reset. Rather than meeting experience with pre-formed strategies, pause, expand awareness, and meet experience without jumping to conclusions.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-29 Settling in (with 30 min silence) 24:45
Opening guidance - As we settle in and incline away from sense contact, our internal experience may seem chaotic. Stability comes from a relationship to this volatile, mundane, unglamorous stuff – one that accepts what arises without rejecting, adopting or adding to it. This relationship is what generates awakened intelligence – the wisdom of “It’s like this now.”
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-29 Walking Meditation (30 min silence) 42:34
Walking meditation can counter the conditioning of the business model. Walking with nowhere to go, broadening attention to include the whole body, to feel the fluidity and pleasure of bodily ease. [Instructions end 11:28]
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-29 Standing Meditation 27:26
From an upright, grounded posture, move from the world of sense consciousness into subjectivity of ‘being conscious’. Meet uncomfortable energies with sympathy and support. [22:43] Transition into movement: Re-enter the world of the physical body – an expression of natural intelligence, integrating it into the sense of the world from the inside out.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-28 Moving to a meditation model 39:06
We practice to come out of the stress and suffering of our workaday ‘Business Model’ by dismantling expectations of comfort and convenience, and of things being reliable. The wise attention that realizes that is itself stable and at ease.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-28 Standing Meditation 23:23
Guided standing meditation: Spreading energy from the ground through the entire body, we set up conditions for blocked energy to release through the body. [14:30] Conclude standing form, begin gentle body movements.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-28 The Paradigm of Practice 57:26
The fundamental grooves that get established are expectations that we can make experience reliable, agreeable, and mine. Pursuing these makes us busy, anxious and stressed. But we can move out of them.
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-04-28 Introduction 21:26
Introductory guided meditation; using controlled breathing; changing the reference point to experiencing the energy body
London Insight Meditation Moving Out of Old Patterns; Undermining a False Reality
2018-03-04 The Duties of Heedfulness Q&A 33:32
Singapore
Attached Files:
2018-03-04 The Duties of Heedfulness 50:28
Singapore
2018-03-03 Qi Gong and Anapanasati Q&A 55:03
at Buddhist Library Singapore
Singapore
Attached Files:
2018-03-03 Qi Gong and Anapanasati 51:13
at Buddhist Library Singapore
Singapore
2018-03-01 Q&A Citta, samādhi, livelihood 57:46
1. What is the difference between citta, mano and viññana; 2. Can you say more about the experience of jhana? Space not content (27:52); 3. (51:44) How can we integrate spiritual practice into worldly life (e.g. in a managerial position)
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-03-01 Guided meditation - Wholesome movements from the heart 16:46
(10 m silence) Intentions move from the heart out into the world. Greed moves from the heart and reaches out; hatred moves from the heart and fights with things. We can us the brahmavihāras to cultivate wholesome movements from the heart that offer, nourish, protect and uplift. This will keep our energy clean and clear of disturbance.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-03-01 An introduction to Dependent Origination 65:08
A detailed description of each link in dependent origination with advice and encouragement for coming out of the cycle of delusion. Start by working on avijjā, ignorance. Step out of the speed and blur of conditioning that causes pressure. Once stopped, attention can shift, and something else becomes available. Release from pressure is now possible. [57:58] How do you find mental stability? Citta is what is affected. We can use the body to affect citta with signs of ground, stability and space.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-28 Sympathetic Resonance 48:43
That which can be liberated is citta – sometimes translated as mind, heart, awareness. The gateway to citta is feeling. “All dhammas converge on feeling.” But mental feeling is chronically suppressed or ignored because it’s inconvenient. If we enter citta appropriately we have access to that which is deeply agreeable – patience, compassion, goodwill. As a result of this sympathetic resonance, citta can be stimulated to wake up to its own potential. Citta is the only one that can liberate citta.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-28 Accept, don't adopt - so wisdom can arise 57:12
Accepting the presence of experience means we don’t grab onto it or resist it. Body provides a foundation to process experience rather than storing them up. As you wake up to the body’s intelligence, it gets to work. Mind’s work is to sustain appropriate attention – not adopting, not rejecting, patience and goodwill. Wisdom naturally arises.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-28 Reflection on kamma 22:36
There is new kamma (action), and old kamma, the results of previous actions. The process of kamma embeds particular habits and perpetuates a sense of self, setting up the model for the future, ongoing becoming. There is also the ending of this kamma process. Ajahn Sucitto describes several skilful means for such cultivation.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-27 Q&A differentiation and discernment, tension, goodwill 46:30
Questions are paraphrased: 1. Given the stressfulness of differentiation, is choosing what kind of meditation to practice stressful? 2. (11:30) Is the undifferentiated, the signlessness – the same as emptiness? 3. (24:02) Could you repeat what you were saying about relaxing tense muscles 4. (37:25) What does it mean to imbue the heart with loving kindness, “likewise the second, likewise the third and likewise the fourth”? What is the all encompassing world…?
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-27 Guided mindfulness of breathing 34:51
Breathing itself trains you, you don’t train it. It trains you to be patient with it, open to it, sensitive to it, stay with it. Balance the doing and allowing, they both have their part to play.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-27 Careful Non-differentiation 57:52
The process of meditation is one of reducing differentiation/proliferation, the movements of the mind towards the pleasant and away from the unpleasant. The body doesn’t proliferate and so can help calm the mind.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-26 Maturation of the liberated mind 49:16
Reading from AN9.3, Ajahn Sucitto reviews the 5 things that lead to maturation of mind to becoming completely liberated. Receiving supportive company runs throughout. It’s not something we do but something we associate with. It involves not the active aspect of energy but the receptive aspect, so we can absorb the skilful, give it time to settle and ripen so wisdom can arise.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-26 Standing - Rest comes through balance 24:03
By carefully establishing connecting with the ground, and lining up the body from the feet up, one begins to sense balance. Muscles can relax. This gives rise to rest and calm.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-26 Hold attention steady with a wide visual field 42:39
For awareness that’s not fully awakened or grounded, there are bound to be reactions, so ideally we place our attention on simple forms that have least reactivity as possible.. Practice with a wide visual field, placing attention on the frame rather than objects within the frame.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-26 Energy, its bondage and liberation 60:44
All living things have energy, it’s our natural vitality, but it gets programmed to be driven, compulsive, and stressful. There is possibility of withdrawing energy from activities that cause suffering, that which we do compulsively.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-26 Instruction - conscious attention 20:15
Attention is a constant thing, so if you don’t place it, it will find its own place, and it will generally place itself into suffering – what could be, should be, things we can’t quite manage. Place it somewhere useful, starting with the body. This is the foundation. [10:03 instructions on breathing and breath energy] With good clear breath energy, mind can establish mindfulness. Careful attention prepares the ground so there’s something suitable to be mindful of. [20:10 begin silent sitting meditation]
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-25 Initial Instruction - devotion, posture, breathing 56:05
Rather than getting somewhere or accumulating anything, Dhamma practice is a matter of bringing forth from ourselves in terms of presence, faith and attention. Attention is a matter of the heart, and the heart is very much supported through the body. Mindfulness of body is the frame; with suitable posture the process of breathing can flow through naturally. [40:02 Begin standing instructions]
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-25 Intro Sasanarakkha: Make your practice extensive, rather than intensive 62:12
The essence of Buddhist practice is dealing with dukkha, unsatisfactoriness. While on retreat, observing precepts, making determinations and simplicity support our cultivation. So there’s always something you can be cultivating throughout the day. Meditation is just a support to Dhamma, Dhamma is the main thing. Cover it all. [40:36 Guided meditation] Settling practices, settling into space. Begins with feeling ground beneath, upright axis of spine, using wide visual field as a support.
Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary :  Ajahn Sucitto Dhamma Retreat
2018-02-06 Votes of thanks, anumodana and forgiveness 26:43
Ajahn Sucitto describes the basic condition of being a monk as being in a field of dana. He expresses his appreciation. [Ends 6:53]
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-06 Summary - stewarding attention through the widening field of the inner and outer worlds 53:50
Buddha’s last words were: All sankhāras are impermanent. Keep applying yourselves with vigilance. This closing talk offers a review of kāya-, citta- and vaci-sankhāra, and a simple 3 step process to moderate their energies: 1) Pay attention, 2) Soften, widen, 3) Include it all. These steps can be used in meditation practice as well as in interactions in the world. We will lose presence, but we don’t have to wait until the next retreat to work it out. When you notice the programs running, feel the body, come down into the feet, exhale, where am I?
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-06 Checking and moderating thought - Guided meditation 61:38
Settling into sitting meditation, tracing posture and energy up the back and down the front, spherical breathing from abdomen. [Bell at 38:17] [Instructions at 40:27] Invitation to loosen the intensity and congestion of thought - vaci-sankhāra, that which forms thought energy. Rather than not thinking, take time to formulate what to think about and bring heart qualities into that. This is a dhamma practice.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-05 Evening Q&A 51:42
1. Can you please speak about dependent origination; 2.(37:20 What is a skilful way to deal with boredom at work?; 3. (35:47) Question on body meditation; 4. (44:53) Could you talk about death?
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-05 Evening instructions - letting mindfulness clean the citta (with 35m silence) 6:13
Before we know how we are or how we’re feeling, we have a sense of here. That’s the basis for whatever is felt and thought. Find what thoughts we are locking around, then opening, breathing - how is that? Is there acceptance of that? It doesn’t mean approving, but there is knowledge of it. This mood, this feeling, is not to be followed. Rather than opening oneself to critical mind, opening oneself through devotional gesture to awareness. This is keeping your citta clean from specks of kharma that can cause irritation and inflammations. [Instructions end 6:25]
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-05 AM - The twelve aspects of the Four Noble Truths 63:08
An explanation of the Four Noble Truths, what keeps us from realizing them, and how to skilfully work to understand and realize each one. This is described as the rich center of the Buddha’s teachings from which everything else emanates. We are encouraged to contemplate the teachings and understand them for ourselves.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-04 Evening Q&A 37:55
1. How would you characterise freedom from sakkayaditthi (personality view)? 2. (18:08) I want to release self-hatred and “not good enough” patterns from an experience with a caregiver in my past that I have been carrying for 14 years. I have had metta towards the memories and the pattern has softened. I want to have metta for the caregiver. Any guidance gratefully received. 3 (32:13) Could you explain further about the body and mind connections?
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-04 AM - The movement and the mover 49:12
What is it that moves us? In the business model, getting things done is generally what drives us. It’s not about appreciation the quality of experience, it’s about arriving at an end result. That root perception gets embedded. The nature of kamma is that the root quality of the intention will appear in the action and also appear in the result. Still the mind, and separate out mental intention from body energy. Mental intention sets up the aim, then let the body follow through with action.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-04 Aimless walking (instruction with 30 minute silence) 3:43
How is walking when there is nowhere particular to go and you want to know how this whole thing operates together? An encouraged skilful means is aimless walking. Frequent pauses to check energies and perceptions, come back into the feet and legs, how does it feel to be in this body now? [Instructions end 3:38]
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-04 AM - Cultivate in accordance with ‘sappaya’: what is suitable and fitting - 20m meditation 33:01
In meditation we can be confronted with inertia or pushing hindrances. Recommendation is to use physical enactment of energy - bowing, chanting -so you’re not gliding along but rising up into the occasion. Cultivate with a sense of sappāya, that which is appropriate, comfortable, manageable. Finding a frame of reference that can support moving against hindrances with patience and opening. This must be a fundamental aim in meditation. [Instructions end 12:43]
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-03 AM - the first 3 fetters 51:45
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-02 Evening Q&A 47:22
1. Could you say more about the citta? 2. (6:47) I believe you suggested this (the conditions for the citta to understand) is where things have to be undone. Could you explain this please? 3. (31:10) Could you talk about “the patience that crosses over”? 4. (44:00) If you know someone who is very dishonest and a Buddhist, what is the most appropriate way to interact?
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-02 AM - Container not content - a frame for emptying 40:36
A lot of the Buddhist approach is in not doing - relaxing, softening, and relinquishing harmful and unskilful inclinations. Establish a firm foundation from which to let go. Don’t get fascinated by content, just establish the frame of reference. Everything is “yes” in terms of its existence, but “no” in terms of getting activated by it. Just acknowledging and letting go, recognizing there’s an alternative, and the energy of the activation shifts by itself and discharges.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-01 Evening Q&A 62:18
1. Further comments on spherical experience of the breath and the experience of the body; 2. (19:43) What is the role of metta bhavana in practice?; 3. (47:32) If the body energy and breath have settled should one proactively introduce an object or wait for an object to present itself?; 4. (48:44) Is it important to be grounded all the time? What about the arupa jhāna non-grounded states?; 5. (51:38) Could you say more about the citta?; 6. (51:53) Can you speak about stream entry and how it arises?
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-01 Knowing the aggregates needs a comfortable heart 57:05
“What is greater, the water in the ocean or the tears shed in this faring on?” We cling to the aggregates, tearfully in search of something stable, permanent, comfortable. But it hasn’t happened. However, subjectivity - that which seeks comfort - is itself a source of comfort and stability. It’s called the citta and depends on itself - doesn’t depend on the aggregates. What needs to be undone is not the aggregate but the clinging to it. So we find a way to maintain presence with these aggregates in all their moving and changing. We use embodiment to bring a heft to awareness, to bring a sense of presence.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-02-01 AM - Assessing rather than judging our practice 67:04
The thing to assess is where the dukkha is, the stress, pressure, longing. Find your refuge place. First attend to where your strengths are, where your ease, humour and resources are, and be nourished there. Don’t let yourself get pulled into your struggle until you’re ready for it. Aspiration, recollection and assessment are necessary prologues to direct application. [Instructions end 23:55] [Begins again 59:15] Sensing how it feels to come back into the group form after a period of individual practice. Sharing blessings and receiving them.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-31 Evening Q&A 49:26
1. Is aspiration (not the chanda type) the same as becoming? How can we not make aspiration into bhava tanha (craving for becoming); 2. (12:30) How do we have skillful mindfulness or more effective awareness of sensations? I find my mindfulness is rather superficial; 3. (18:25) How can we abstain from killing living creatures when doing daily duties? For example finding ants in what needs to be swept in the kitchen; 4. (25:22) Is it possible to be aware and work fast at the same time - like in the kitchen? 5. (43:10) Please talk about spiritual by-pass and how to avoid it, especially as it relates to the idea of not self.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-31 AM - Sati sampajañña A hold that knows how to flex 43:21
In meditation practice we need to moderate the meditator. Influenced by the business model, attention can be rigid. Wisdom, which we all have access to, is sensitive and flexible in its mode of attention, helping us find the right touch to meet experience.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-31 Guided Meditation - Saying Yes to what arises 5:16
Use the word “yes” to meet whatever is occurring. Without agitation or resistance, without results or trying to change anything. A reference point begins to form, there’s willingness and openness that has its own stature. Use sympathetic resonance with whatever arises.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-30 Evening 30 min Meditation - Mindfulness and full knowing 43:56
Sati-sampajañña, mindfulness and full knowing, are the basis of mindfulness. These are the holding and handling in meditation. Sati is the foundation for samadhi (unification), sampajañña is the foundation for pañña (wisdom). Sense of ground is generally the necessary starting point. [Instructions end 9:52]
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-30 Evening Q&A 57:52
1. I am not able to get the breath at the nostrils. What should I do?; 2 (19:20) Could you discuss body energy more?; 3. (46:17) How can I deal with my many mental proliferations in mindful daily life, in interacting with the surrounding environment and other people? 4. (53:54) Have you been introduced to tantric Theravada practice? 5. (57:05) Is it useful to develop psychic skills?
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-30 Evening Meditation - A caring inquiry: what is helpful, now? 9:54
Consider what is useful to focus on for this meditation period. What is a suitable meal for citta to dine on? What gives a natural sense of vitality? What gives a sense of good heart? [Instructions end 9:52]
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
2018-01-30 AM - The natural source of good will is awareness 48:25
We struggle against the uncertainty and unsatisfactoriness of the phenomenal world. Wisdom lets us know: I can be aware of all of this rather than resist it - I can pause, reflect and determine an appropriate response. As awareness arises the response (not a reaction) is goodwill.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto

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