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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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2020-12-16 Why Chant? 4:31
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Chanting is a resounding of the potentials of realization. Be part of the celebration, it’s very good for the heart. Put your voice in that and be part of the flow.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-16 Receiving Oneself 7:40
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How do we heal the wounds and bruises of self? Recognize what is met: perception, contact, a cascade of memories. Don’t go into the stories, don’t try to fix or change anything. Let the feelings surge and move through your embodiment. Soften, widen, let citta do its work – keep the personality to one side.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-16 Empathy and non-clinging 40:27
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The clinging reflex constricts citta, causing the loss of intelligence and sensitivity. Allowing things to shift and change lets us live more harmoniously and respectfully. In meditation, practice bringing attention back to the entire body, not fixating on any one point. Where citta and body come together, the all-encompassing world can be reviewed with goodwill and compassion.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-16 Q&A -body postures, vipassana, jhana 43:13
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Recollection - Skilful Thought 11:19
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It’s important to learn to feel our thoughts. When thoughts are felt, there’s an instinctive filtering for true, uncluttered, undistracted thoughts. Chanting gives us a way to practice with this.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Centring Meditation 15:08
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Tune into the capacity to open and be sensitive. Listen in a feeling way to the pulses, tinglings, warmth of the body. Everything that resonates in your heart is felt directly in the body. Stay with awareness and allow feelings and emotions to shift, move, be ventilated and pass.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Strengthen Heart within the Mind 22:10
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Citta requires strength to meet the afflictive perceptions and meanings that compress it. Shutting down and distracting ourselves is understandable, but inadequate. Cultivation of spiritual faculties gives citta tools and capacity to meet phenomena with compassion and skillful action.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Samādhi Practice 33:14
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With the sīla practice in place, we give attention to samādhi practice – finding our center within the world of sense contact. From this steady place we are present, witnessing, attuning to how citta is touched by it all.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Sīla Practice 15:36
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Precepts are what most skillfully link citta to the world of sense contact. Without this ethical sense, citta runs out and gets into damaging circumstances. Precepts are the way you communicate the Dhamma through your actions into the world.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Introduction to Precepts 8:06
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The fundamental citta sense is an ethical sense. We try to encourage that with precepts. This is how we align ourselves to citta.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-15 Opening - Ethics and Meditation 21:16
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Introduction to online format and schedule, encouragements for how to practice and make the most of these circumstances.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-14 Cleaning Citta - New Moon Lunar Observance 51:49
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Purification of mind is not just spiritual jargon but necessary for happiness. No matter how gross or subtle, our speech, mental intentions and bodily actions affect us. Training and cleaning citta involves bringing uplifting qualities to mind and refraining from contracting to the unpleasant. This is how our kamma can begin to change.
Cittaviveka
2020-12-13 Q&A 37:42
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Can you comment on the other 3 foundations of mindfulness aside from body; is ‘heart-mind’ the translation for citta; is kamma self-perpetuating; please say more about tendency of untrained mind to outflow and how to reverse them; differentiate interdependency and toxic co-dependency in relationships; please explain mindful internally, externally, and both; please speak about how we can manage fear in this time of Corona virus; what is meant by ‘citta is released’; how do we work with aversion, like chemical sensitivity; what is the difference between citta as direct knowing and citta as learning; can you speak more about cleaning out the citta?
Dharma College
2020-12-13 Embodied Presence 48:03
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With mindfulness of body, we have a place where we can withdraw from the constructed world and come into direct experience. The body acts as a giant sense organ – feeling, sensing, open to it all. The body can clean encumbrances we would otherwise carry around with us.
Dharma College
2020-12-11 Q&A 15:10
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Is citta/mindfulness always present; who is attending to the citta; where does citta’s luminosity land; eyes opened or closed in meditation; thinking during discernment; use of cooling and warming in relation to what’s arising.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-11 'Unestablished' Citta 40:55
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Citta can have sore spots, particularly volatile reactions that spin it out into planning. There’s the possibility of not being in that compulsive grip, of turning to the deathless element. Citta can be trained to withdraw into its own stillness, its own knowing.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-11 Guided Meditation – Calm and Withdrawal 30:18
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Begin by remembering the value of calm and insight. Place attention carefully at the point of contact impression. Softening and widening so the impressions don’t stick. Let them roll off like beads of water.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-11 Unwrapping Citta from the Khandha 27:46
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Citta is the still point in all the movement, tangle and impact. It’s hard to recognize, but body offers a reference point – the sense of presence. Yoniso manasikara, careful attention, trims the flood of experience to a summary message of what’s contacting you. Body can then be used to discharge the push of the aggregates.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-10 Q&A 2 52:56
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Relationship between citta, mano and viññāna; why doesn’t citta appear in the chain of dependent co-arising; what is samudayo; the nature of contact and perception conditioning feeling; how can one prepare for death; skills and developments of the mano function and how that mixes in with citta; helping other people; bubbling energy in meditation; limiting external impingements on citta in householder life.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-10 Q&A 1 22:18
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Equanimity as a brahmavihara and equanimity as a factor of awakening; latent tendencies (anusaya); uprooting hindrances; role of the formless realms in developing insight and freedom;; when is the mind is ready to go to the formless realm; where does vedanā fit in with manas/ mano; quality of self-respect in removing the need to prove oneself.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-10 Using Citta to Clear Obstacles and Conventions 34:07
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In the process of body meditation, the notional conventional body drops away and we find the citta body. With the cultivation of appamano states, it is nourished and strengthened to meet our negative afflictive states and heal them.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-10 Boundariless Citta 26:41
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The boundless nature of citta can make us feel too vulnerable, so we put up boundaries that end up constricting us. Cultivation of the brahmaviharā, the measureless states, is a removal of those boundaries. An abiding place results that can act as a foundation for complete liberation.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-09 Guided Meditation – Brahmaviharā 30:11
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If we keep picking up and resonating the brahmaviharā heart tones, citta will naturally open and move in that direction. These are natural expressions of citta – it feels rewarded with these expressions and is energized.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-09 Q&A 2 47:53
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Questions about involuntary movements in practice; please you comment on the third tetrad of ānāpānasati; please review the potential value of jhāna experiences; say more about how ignorance sucks energy from citta; deep fears and primal memories.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-09 Q&A 1 16:13
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Misguided jhāna; how to practice with the three characteristics (anicca, dukkha, anatta); is ānāpānasati enough for liberation?
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-09 The Absorption Process 50:53
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Meditation is a whole life process. Proper cultivation of citta – diligence, vigilance, careful attention in our attitudes and actions – can lead to degrees of liberation. Topics of samadhi, jhāna, wisdom are addressed.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-09 Guided Meditation – Handling the Citta towards Jhāna 38:51
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Lingering is part of the process of absorbing. It takes time to learn. Establish reference points to return to, lingering with no particular agenda. Keep widening and softening attention over the whole body.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-08 Q&A 52:23
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Please expand on terms kusala and akusala; right effort when working with body tension; is thought consciousness the same as anusaya (latent tendencies); please describe Thai Forest’s particular way of teaching dhamma; does stepping back out of the conditioned into the unconditioned refer to the unrestricted unbounded citta; how is yoniso manasikara different from mindfulness; comments on Venerable Paññavaddho’s view on citta.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-08 Guided Meditation – Responsive Intelligence 25:20
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Meditation is a process repeatedly placing attention. Keep touching references of comfort and steadiness, listen and linger until citta picks up the sign. We begin to learn what is suitable, what is working to gladden citta. It then has the strength to break down the afflictions of heart and body.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-08 Q&A 26:16
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Please explain Ajahn Maha Boowa’s comment that citta ‘does not die’; is the experience of something that sees and receives experience citta; is citta what Tibetans call ‘mind itself’; is pure citta synonymous with pure knowing; please clarify comment about ‘storms passing through’ in relation to suicide; do we know when we are experiencing citta; how to rest in citta, the place of no ‘I’?
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-08 Citta as Luminous Awareness 45:20
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Reading from several sources, the unrestricted citta is described. Beyond the world of phenomena, its baseline is open luminosity. The encouragement is to get in touch with its knowingness – jhāna is how we deepen into mind’s nature.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-08 Guided Meditation On Primary Citta 31:51
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The baseline of citta is openness, but it’s forgotten, mesmerized by its constrictions. Return to this primary citta, beneath the external and internal concerns. Take as support breathing out and breathing in.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-08 Guided Meditation – Opening out of Circumstance 24:42
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Meditation offers an important reference point out of the world of circumstances. Mindfulness of body and breathing offer rest and replenishment, giving citta access to its life force energy. Ends with walking meditation instructions.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Evening Q&A 42:53
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Meaning of ‘The citta goes to distinction’; search for security externally and internally; the wrapping and unwrapping of citta; manas and its relationship to citta; practicing with grief; is citta the unconditioned; please clarify comment about vipassana practice; when is observing bodily/somatic states dissociation and cutting off from them?
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Recollecting and Appreciating Citta as Heart 31:35
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The affective heart aspect of citta is absolutely essential for cultivation. Instead of contracting in the face of dukkha, it can open – rise up to it – with compassion, gladness, equanimity. This is what makes a human magnificent.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Summary – Checking Perception 10:09
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The perceptions that cause contraction can be shifted and changed. Going to the root of where the perceptions arise, pause – don’t follow the immediate reflex. Ask – what’s helpful now? Let the unrestricted citta respond.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Afternoon Q&A 27:29
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Meaning of ‘concocted’; upward movement of energy; difference between manas and mano; meaning of ‘pure mind’; development of ‘wise discernment’; citta as process rather than thing; can yoga help unbind citta; difference in Vedic meaning of ‘chitta’ and Buddha’s use of ‘citta’; where duality comes in; meaning of ‘unwrapped citta’; Ajahn Maha Boowa’s characterization of citta.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Citta Wrapped in Khanda = Contraction 48:03
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We rarely experience pure citta. What we experience are its wrappings – its conditioned programs. Our aim is to first make the wrapping as good and beneficial as possible, and second, to release citta from all conditions.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Guided Meditation – Intentional Aspect of Citta 29:13
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Beginning with citta’s ability to intend and attend, steer away from distractions and compulsions. Establish mindfulness (sati ) using body as a mooring post. Guidance around breathing and body follow.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-07 Guided Meditation – Centring and Stabillizing Citta 39:11
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Citta is our center, but it’s conditioned to allowing itself to be occupied with transient phenomena. In meditation we can shift back to citta as the center, thereby weakening the habits of running out and trying to control circumstances.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-06 Guided Meditation – Training the Mind with Light Touch and Listening 25:36
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Citta is energetic, its energies habituated to going out. Settle and calm it through the body, and sustain attention with light touch and listening, vitaka-vicara. Listen for a long time to what you place your attention on. Mind becomes calm and receptive.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-12-06 Overview of Citta 50:18
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Referring to various Dhammapada passages, we come to understand that citta is stuck, grasped, bound up. But it can be released with wisdom. In meditation we practice calming and steadying. Citta can bond to body or breathing rather than running out.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2020-11-30 Stress Requires a Light Touch (Full Moon Lunar Observance ) 49:37
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In the contracted norm, mind becomes bonded to conditioned reality, unable to let go. Citta can be trained to relate to phenomena dispassionately. Use vitaka-vicara in meditation to step back, listen in and find your balance point. Mind can have a still quiet center and engage with conditioned reality appropriately, without grasping.
Cittaviveka
2020-11-28 Living Dhamma 39:34
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As a result of the pandemic, we are experiencing the frailty of our systems and structures. Awareness is the only constant resource we have. It can be trained and purified to bring loving careful attention to all that we meet.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-11-27 Guided Meditation – Thinking with Heart 15:35
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Meditation is about opening up to the subjective aspect of our experience – the sense of knowing. Practice with placing attention on something very lightly, then listening with heart. Without force, without judgment, just aware of the sensations, emotion, energies, mental patterns. The quality of knowing gives rise to a tremendous immediate clarity.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-11-21 Q&A 48:00
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Clarification about the fetter “attachment to rites and rituals”; what’s the purpose of life; question about addiction; working with depression; where is the reference to energy in Buddhism; how to get space in intense situations; review of the 4 qualities to promote social harmony – generosity, gentle/harmonious speech, benevolent service, impartiality – DN30:1:16, AN4:32
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-11-21 Guided Meditation – Opening to the Cosmos 10:39
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Puja celebrates that there’s something in awareness more than just this ‘self’ thing. We can open to something bigger, experience a wider sense of being. Keep lifting and placing attention back into the Dhamma stream – that which touches and opens the heart.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-11-14 Release from the restricted in this life 45:47
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The dukkha of restriction is experienced in this very body, and manifest as a person restricted by upbringing, ethnicity and gender (etc) living in a world restricted by nationality and social structures. We can train ourselves in the unrestricted state through meditation and through living in a way that connects the open heart to service, in the ‘all -encompassing world’ touched by goodwill.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-11-14 Guided Meditation – Opening body, opening heart 12:42
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Jhāna is an embodiment practice. Absorbing and settling deeply into presence, use awareness to encourage opening each part of the body. Enriched energy and heart can then begin to digest the events of the day and release them.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2020-11-07 Unconditioned Supports the Conditioned 41:54
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The unconditioned gives us a place to step back from experience, to meet the conditioned world with sensitivity and equanimity. We access qualities of faith, energy, mindfulness and wisdom to accept and meet exactly what’s happening right now.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down

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