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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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2021-07-11 Puja – Coming into Uprightness 46:45
The upright is both an anatomical and psychological reference. It’s from the upright that we deepen, moving through difficult territories without getting hooked, arriving at places of authenticity and clarity. Puja offers an occasion for opening and deepening.
Cittaviveka Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Day 1 Q&A – Common Problems 53:19
with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
How to deal with bodily pain; what to do when mind is obsessively thinking; mind goes dull and I keep falling asleep; what to do with weird energies that can happen; I can’t seem to do breath meditation.
Cittaviveka Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Guided Meditation - Deepen and Breathe 34:23
Begins with standing posture, aligning the posture so muscles can relax deeply. Flows into sitting posture without breaking the deepening process. Energies from the depth rise up and concoct scenarios that carry the flavor of what’s unresolved – passion, despair, worry. Breathe through it, cooling and steadying the energy in your body.
Cittaviveka Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Love, Breathing and Life – an Outline 49:10
An introduction to the theme of the retreat that redefines traditional meanings of love, breathing and life. Breathing provides the foundation from which we can open to circumstance without fighting, without grabbing. And isn’t this what love is? Just staying with the restrictions, not asking for anything, just flowing through. This is what it means to live a meaningful life – to meet and show up for this experience.
Cittaviveka Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 How to Use the Body 54:02
Instructions for establishing an upright, open posture where you can relax and let breathing happen. The body recognizes that. When the body is relaxed and peaceful, mind sees things clearly. Introduction to chanting as a means for expressing our faith and aspirations. This is how to set up a meditation temple in your own body.
Cittaviveka Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-06-26 Q&A 43:16
Cultivating mental/emotional equilibrium – drowsiness, other people. Energies – how to sense subtle body, body sways in meditation, standing meditation, qigong, kundalini. Do we need goals in life; fear and anxiety; physical pain devoid of mental pain; advice about becoming a nun.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-26 Guided Meditation – Acknowledging Dukkha 14:41
When we try to settle, what we might notice is unsettledness. Rather than go into the topic, recognize the energy. Give attention to places in the body that are non-agitated. Use body and breathing to change the speed of the mind, steady it. Once settled, then dilemmas and unfinished business can be related to with dispassion, compassion, detachment.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-24 Innate Nobility 55:15
The world that consciousness presents us as existing within is divided into self and other; this is a source of suffering. Authentic relatedness is needed to realize that there is no fundamental self or other. So we need to establish a relationship with the uncertainty of this that’s harmonious. Stop the topic, experience the energy. If we meet suffering not in terms of me and you, but with awareness of agitated energies, then lovingkindness, compassion and patience naturally arise. The tangle of fear and insecurity that imprisons us dissolves. The citta returns to its innate nobility.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-23 Guided Meditation – Staying Present with Experience 52:30
There are 2 qualities of citta: it is affected and it is knowing, aware. With cultivation, awareness can become much more apparent and encompassing while the affective sense can steady, calm and subside into something still. The process is to go through the body. As the body eases, citta settles and collects into itself – samādhi. Happy, easeful, refreshed.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-19 Breathing Intelligence 37:26
Cultivation of citta is the highest kind of learning we can undertake. The breathing body is our means for learning, for directly experiencing our kammic configurations. It provides a basis so when difficult states arise, citta can remain open and stable, and move through them.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-19 Guided Meditation – Emotional and Bodily Bases 16:49
The Buddha said that amongst all the bodies, best is the breathing body. Most important is to give emotional support to let the breathing do the work – allowing, wishing, encouraging. This a useful foundation for contemplating the various currents, energies, obsessions that citta has to release.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-17 Restraining the Outflows 58:11
All the world rests on very simple human emotions – fear, anxiety, loneliness, gratification. We run out because of them, or build walls to protect ourselves from them. Practice with restraint, keep coming back to here, now, knowing, it’s like this. Don’t run out, just return, and the outflows fade on their own.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-13 Stop Running and Your Real Home Appears 56:31
The tendency to keep running out into concepts eventually results in overload, insecurity, anxiety, collapse. We’re desperately looking for sanity. The steadiness and fulfillment we seek is already here, in the non-conceptual intelligence of body and heart. Rather than going out, return to where body, mind and heart energy come together. In this presence our real home appears.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-13 Sensitivity and Restraint 31:52
One of the most fundamental requirements in meditation is restraining the mind. Rather than running out, energy can settle and calm. Then one’s effort is neither straining towards some goal, nor enmeshed in agitation. There’s space for sensitivity, receptivity, listening. When the outflows are restrained goodwill, compassion, clarity and wisdom come forth on their own.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-13 Guided Meditation - Bodily Ease 14:51
Use the three intelligences of heart, mind and body to create a sense of calm and happiness. Body helps restrain mind; heart generates an atmosphere of gentleness and goodwill. Know what’s worth giving attention to for liberation.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-06 Not Quite So: Co-Dependent Arising 28:49
Our apparent reality arises from moods and interpretations that generate the world of time and space, self and other. It’s possible to meet the moods and mental states directly without creating stories or identities until the signs dissolve and only clarity remains. Meditation and engagement are skillful means to understand the dependent arising of our world, of suffering, and of skillful dhammas.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-06 Guided Meditation – Establish Puja as Your Abiding Place 14:40
We can use the occasion of puja to cultivate signs of purity, beauty, liberation. You’ll feel it changes the rhythm of the mind – heart opens, thinking mind slows down and bodily presence wakes up. Anxieties and agitations are held in this open presence, felt in the body, and allowed to pass and dissolve.
Cittaviveka At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-04 Inching into Uncertainty - Closing Talk and Chanting 28:02
A reflection on how this online retreat came together: good people combining their skills towards a wholesome intention. Whatever we embark on has an element of uncertainty and possibility of failure, but the heart doesn’t fail. Stay open, do your practice, and meet the challenges that arise. Best to form a group – it becomes difficult when you feel you’ve got to do it on your own.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Day 6 Q&A2 – The Sacred, Body, Self and Other 47:37
Trying to find triggers and safe space in the midst of health issues that affect nervous system, heart rate and breathing; stiff neck and shoulder muscles keep re-contracting; how to respond to getting so tired; what is the wise and caring response to body; navigating touch and contact skillfully; how can we be heirs to our kamma if there is no self to inherit it; through investigation of qualities of citta clarity and falling away has occurred – how to sustain; the more I see things clearly the more I feel the weight of delusion causing sadness and disgust and feeling of pointlessness for practice; how to approach in and out breath to calm mental activity (citta)/please speak to mindfulness of feeling from the Ānāpānasati Sutta.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 No Beginnings, No Endings, Just Practice 3:03
On this last day of retreat, mind might be occupied with comings and goings and what’s next. Remember the stabilizing practices that give citta the strength and encouragement to open despite the bewildering nature of things. Don’t be moved by the change of circumstance, every moment is precious.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Open Path 46:53
An encouragement to continue finding the time and occasion to establish presence to be with all that arises. It’s not about getting through the maze of dukkha but gaining the skills and balance that lift you out. It’s the path of the sappurisa, the person of integrity who attunes to practice with all it requires – faith, open center, with the first movement being goodwill.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Puja – Regaining Heart, Regaining Life 42:49
We throw ourselves away into identities, sources of stress, comparison, separation. Puja is an occasion for returning to citta’s true home – the sacred that includes it all. Make note of what takes you out and what brings you back home – faith, values – and keep them close by.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Day 6 Q&A1 34:29
Is citta able to verbalize/understand words; citta’s role in nightmares; differences between hindrances and fetters; is cultivating bhavana or khanti better for burning off defilements; a lot of pain in the body caused movement in meditation disrupting energy; cultivating mētta; alternative healing methods; startled out of the body when bell rings; locating ancestral exclusions in the body; understanding workings of mind from Abhidhamma perspective vs. contemplation of 4 foundations of mindfulness for realizing non-self; accessing solar plexus during meditation; finding firmness when touching into open spaciousness; musician is torn between music and meditation.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Guided Meditation - Quietly Witnessing the Kammic Field 5:30
As you review what’s arising and passing for you, establish balance and continue with non-engagement. It’s just the human citta doing what it does. Awareness, firm and focused, lingering – in that you’ll find a quiet happiness.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Day 5 Q&A2 54:25
Working at our levels but there’s nothing to attain/is citta is inherently pure; how to think about kamma after death; how does being enveloped in compassion feel; after moving energy down into belly deciding to move from samatha to vipassanā; the knower merges with the known and there’s no object left; when beginning to become concentrated I get hijacked into numbness/feeling lost in brahmaviharā; relationship between awareness, citta, mindfulness and the mind.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Kamma, Signs and Signlessness 56:49
We can become flooded by signs that carry meaning according to our kammic histories. To move out of the floods of thought, self, other people, let the sign be a reminder. Go to the body, the felt sense, to the place where the personal qualities are subdued and there’s just the qualities of goodwill and patience. Energies shift and release. This is how we clean out embedded kamma.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Puja – Images of the Sacred 23:11
The signs in daily life can be sterile, abrasive, rapid – designed for effective organization, not for organic life. Puja is an occasion to shift gears and cultivate signs of simple beauty, warmth, inclusivity. It’s helpful to have an atmospheric dip every day into signs that cause citta to feel like home.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Day 5 Q&A1 51:17
Bright pure light which comes up in meditation; dealing with trauma from a kammic standpoint; how to practice with back pain and lack of sleep; if there’s no self who puts forth effort into the 4 right efforts; offering of invitation was not received leaving sourness; when feeling arises from words do I just stay with the feeling or inquire about it; a lot of pain in body and sudden urge to cry; mind first allows phenomena to subside and investigates later; transitioning back into kammic realm from a place of presence is challenging too easily losing mindfulness; difference between citta and manas; compulsive tendency around cleanliness; struggle with breath meditation feeling like I’m controlling it.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A2 50:15
Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Healing, Forgiveness and Blessing 17:17
It’s very important to share the heart, share the blessings with all that arises. One should do this regularly. Let go of the image, let go of the person – don’t dismiss it, relate to it, witnessing with sympathy, extending the heart. Lingering in the steady open presence, get familiar with it, feeling it, resting in it.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Dependent Arising 5:06
Mindstates, feelings, perceptions are moving, shifting – there’s no single coherent entity in that, yet there’s awareness of that. Maintaining simple open presence, bring your body into harmony, bring your heart into harmony, and the view becomes clear: this is dependent arising.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A2 50:15
Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Chanting – Puja and Divine Abidings (English) 9:37
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 The Power of Love 41:31
The power of lovingkindness is it can nourish and fortify the heart so doesn’t get crushed by the floods. This gives us a platform for life where all phenomena, even the most painful and difficult, can be witnessed and held. It’s just kammic forces playing themselves out – don’t get stuck in that.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Puja – Heart Consciousness 38:41
Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A1 49:13
How to relate to afflictive states; thoughts of unwholesome acts arise in meditation; how can I feel safety in my brown body when there is external racism; is the movement of citta saṇkhāra the same as cetana; feels like body grows bigger while meditating; body cells are asking for more oxygen; how to direct energy to peripheral parts of body; remaining with awareness mind while noticing absence of ‘I’; self-consciousness, fear making a mistake and being judged; affected by family’s trauma like citta is haunted.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Suffusion with the Divine Abidings Chanting (English) 9:37
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Guided Meditation – Be the Seer 8:42
Keeping the focus of eye consciousness still and soft, aware of the one who sees. This seer doesn’t speak, it just sees. Notice when mind consciousness begins chattering – nothing to talk about, there’s just the seer.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Puja - Heart Consciousness 38:41
Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Guided Meditation - Breath Energy 42:57
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Goodwill 38:04
The practice of recollecting and extending goodwill establishes stability of heart. Bring to mind your allies, warming the heart in response to the inferred hostility it experiences. Repel the ill-will knowing there is something beautiful here to be protected.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Extending Heart 14:07
Practice with the gradual extension of the heart. Extend it in terms of goodwill. Include difficult places without withdrawal of warmth, regard or empathy. Without shutting down, allow things to be as they are. Remain open, extend from the center.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Suffusion with the Divine Abidings Chanting (Pāli) 3:55
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Day 3 Q&A2 47:34
Relationship between manas and citta; excessive sexual images; what is the subtle body; breath as prana/breath of life; heart qualities that shift perception to vitality; opening energy centers; does energy discharge in standing meditation; working with psychological and emotional pain; resentment and anger arise when practicing at home; unlearning addiction to the clock.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Guided Meditation - Clearing the Body 15:43
Beginning at the abdomen – the center of the body, the energy center – use a combination of awareness and breathing to open, relax and release areas of the body.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 The Three-fold Flood 53:02
The floods that wash over citta – floods of sensuality, kamma and unknowing – make it unstable, causing it to constantly search outside of itself for an anchor. The training is for citta to sit back in itself – remain embodied and use the tools within its range to gain strength and weaken the underlying programs.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Puja - The Sacred 30:09
In puja we align ourselves to the sacred. It gives our hearts a sense of purpose. Recollection of values and virtues are uplifted and sustained, giving rise to sappurisa – a person of integrity whose actions are for the welfare of all.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Morning Chanting, 5 Subjects for Frequent Recollection 8:16
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Day 3 Q&A1 42:27
How do I know if I have stream entry; how is fasting a benefit for practice; is body contemplation needed, how often; how to live with someone who lacks integrity; sāti and samādhi; experience of rapture during meditation; difficult to see dukkha in sense pleasures; observing eight precepts; keeping ‘not eating after noon’ based on which time zone; issue of entitlement; receiving guidance from a teacher; understanding causes and conditions for clarity.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Feeling Creates the Person 24:23
The effect of feeling, agreeable or disagreeable, touches the citta. The practice is not to contract around the resonance, don’t grab the feeling. It’s the clinging reflex that creates the person. Maintain open stable presence – go bigger and wider than the activations – and the grasping lessens.
Cittaviveka Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload

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