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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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2019-12-11 Q&A 58:59
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1) What is citta? 2) Regrets, how to forgive oneself 3) How to practice appamano states in everyday life (mudita, equanimity) 4) How to work with obstructive mind-states (judgmental, not good enough, lonely, regretful, hopelessness) 5) How to practice reclining meditation 6) Headaches in certain mind-states
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-11 The Gentle and Harmonious Tonality of Puja 16:00
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Beginning the day with puja, a certain tonality is established. Not the abrasive, pushy, congested one of modern day, but something beautiful, timeless, gentle and steady. As we enact puja, we establish the Triple Gem as a heart quality that we can sit within. This is our refuge place.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-10 Guided Meditation: Heartful Sympathy for All Beings 42:01
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This guided meditation touches into a fundamental quality that arose with the Buddha’s final realization – anukamapa, heartfelt sensitivity and sympathy for the welfare of sentient beings. We practice by generating perceptions and relating directly to the resulting experience.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-10 Mind’s Nature Is to Be Happy 62:55
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We live in the sense world, but we don’t have to run out into it. We can see, hear and touch, but keep the heart collected inwardly. This gives a sense of balance and peace, an inner happiness.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-10 Make the First Effort of the Day with Wisdom and Persistence 16:12
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Take the opportunity when you begin your day to turn away from unskillful states and start putting down the seeds for skillful states. Committing to precepts and recollecting Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha bring mental firmness. Breathing and chanting bring physical vitality and brightness. This builds up the reserves of wisdom and vitality to sustain you through the day.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 Care for the Mind – It’s Your Home 56:52
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Whatever we incline our minds toward will affect us. Where do I want to give my attention? Where do I want to commit my time? These are helpful reflections. The mind is our home. Practicing with themes of restraint, mindfulness and careful attention, we have a chance to brighten and purify it.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 How to Stand Back from the Stream of Mind 63:35
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It can be humbling to recognize that we’re not getting the results we’re going for in practice. We cultivate 4 Dhamma factors – motivation, energy, relinquishment & investigation – to understand the stream of mind we keep getting caught in, and to develop the capacity to stand back from it.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 The Key to Standing Meditation: Balance 23:37
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If the back is not yet strong enough to sustain the sitting posture, standing offers relief. The feet, legs and ground sustain the upright posture so shoulders and upper body can relax. The key reference is balance.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-09 Skillful Placement of the Mind 38:47
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Beginning our day, we realize the potential of the mind for confusion or clarity. We need to be quick to steer the mind towards the skillful. In puja we raise up skillful qualities of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha as images and perceptions. This establishes a tone of brightness, persistence and open-heartedness.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-08 How to Settle and Calm 43:52
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When the heart can’t access its own centeredness and stability, the experience of insecurity and discomfort results. We can intentionally introduce skillful thoughts and perceptions to settle and calm the heart.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-08 The Path to Liberation Is through Direct Experience 53:17
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There are two modes of experience, conceived and direct. Conceived experience keeps us stuck in the endless cycle of saṃsara. The way out is through direct experience. Practice with sensing the direct experience of body.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-08 Puja: A Purification Process 1:16:15
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Puja is more than just thinking and recollecting. It’s very much an embodied, vocalized, participatory practice. You don’t really think about puja, you do it. In the doing of it there’s a particular energy, a collective harmony and a collective action that has purification effects.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-12-07 Preparing the Heart and Mind for Practice 63:48
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An explanation of the opening rituals: what offering respect to the Triple Gem means; what the shrine offerings represent; how the precepts support our intention to train. Closes with the exhortation to make an effort with friendliness.
Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand :  6-Day Residential Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
2019-10-12 Integrity Leads to Awakening 54:22
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With reference to AN10:61, this teaching reviews the nutriments that result in ignorance, and the nutriments that result in true knowledge and liberation. For the latter, it starts with a person of integrity, with kalyanamitta. We all model something to each other. Cultivating purity of mind, thought, intention, speech, action is then not only for our welfare, but for the welfare of others.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-12 Approach to Samadhi and Its Benefits 38:53
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Intention is conditioned to move forward, to move to the next thing. But the encouragement here is to moderate one’s citta – volitional tendencies. Recollect the skillful, linger and deepen into the feeling of it until the mind is gladdened, settled, brought to singularity. There is always more to do on the conditioned level – taking time to store up the good in this way should not be neglected.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-11 Sweeping the Path 29:54
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Like dust, defilements creep into the mind and build up. We live in a dusty world, it’s not a personal failing. The normal response is to be vigilant about sweeping – sustain mindfulness. Persistence, energy, and right attitude are required.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-10 The Way Out of the Jungle 32:50
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We can do better than just getting by. We can feel fulfilled in a deep way, released from our confusion and blind spots. We use meditation to cultivate qualities of non-suffering, comfort and steadiness and extend them. The resulting inner harmony becomes our vehicle for walking through the jungle of the heart.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-09 Meeting the Wild Stuff 36:10
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The way of the world is linked up to the five hindrances, so we can’t often see them. Automatic attention takes you straight into them. Train attention to be broad and dispassionate. Recognize sense objects for what they are, a secondary reality. Primary reality is contact impression, how citta is affected.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-08 Cultivating Factors for Release 30:10
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The mind requires both calm and energy for release. Then abandonment comes through investigation. The investigation is calm and sympathetic; thinking is minimal, mostly feeling and sensing how it is. A return to forest dwellers’ practice is recommended.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-07 Forest Awareness 54:54
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With reference to MN19, this teaching addresses the two kinds of thought – ones that lead to my welfare, the welfare of others and the welfare of both, and ones that don’t. But rather than giving attention to the particular thoughts, encouragement is given to tune into the underlying mind stream. Get the feel of it. This requires holistic attention – for one to be alert, sensitive and receptive.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-06 Guided Meditation: Introduction to Forest Awareness 49:39
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This guided meditation is an invitation to return to the kind of awareness standard of a forest dweller. Defocus and dislodge attention from particular points and details, and tune in to the overall sense of being here. Present, alert, attentive, knowing – not aware of anything, aware of everything.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa 2019 Closing Group Practice Retreat, Cittaviveka Monastery
2019-10-05 Walking in the Dark 47:48
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How can we turn from being an enemy to the planet? By turning off our “head-light” and turning on our “heart-light”. As humans we are uniquely positioned to produce morality, compassion and wisdom in this dark time of climate crisis. May we meet this opportunity heartfully, the way the Buddha described, trembling with compassion for the welfare of all living beings. May we open to the darkness, let it touch us deeply and wake us to a different way of seeing things.
Extinction Rebellion Brighton
2019-07-31 Clearing World from the Mind 49:02
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We look for certainty in things that can ever be certain. Constantly pulled out by the world, we leave the only thing that can ever be certain – citta. Rather than attempt to get away from unpleasant feeling, we can review it, soothe and release some of its tangles. We might find it’s possible to be with discomfort, yet free and deeply secure.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-29 Transmission of Dhamma to Cittaviveka 43:40
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Reflecting on the beginnings of Cittaviveka, there’s something to recognize beyond just the history. There’s the transmission, what’s happened in mind, heart and spirit. It can be tracked all the way to the Buddha and the first Noble Truth – a sign of inadequacy, suffering, stress and the wish to realize something further than that. A certain nobility of intention came out of that, and is the same thread of continuity that runs through the monastery today.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-23 Relevant Mindfulness 40:45
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Mindfulness is the ability to bear things in mind with a steady intention. Like the sides of the hand, there is a hard side with its ability to bar and repel corrupting influences, and a soft side that lingers and takes in the qualities. Select an object of meditation based on what’s needed, and give attention to the careful holding.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-22 Cooking Good Dhammas 36:53
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Dhammas are things that directly affect citta. They can be awakening factors or hindrances. We train to skillfully handle them, like taming a wild animal. The thinking mind acts as the trainer. Based on citta’s responses, appropriate themes to settle and calm the mind are presented. Citta rewards such sensitivity and responsiveness with pleasure, ease and wisdom.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-21 Guided Meditation - Receptivity of Mind 47:51
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In meditation we bring energy to receptivity of the mind. Generally, mind is in active mode. But through listening, sensitizing, and not moving onto the next thing, heart awareness opens more fully.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-21 Citta and Non-Grasping 38:30
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When the mind is not steady and has gone into activation, clinging is inevitable. The clung-to experience creates the person. But there’s a choice. Our responsibility is to manage the flood of the aggregates through mindfulness.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-20 Mindfulness and Non-Grasping 51:10
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The trained mind is fluid and flexible – natural. The untrained mind is fixed and grasping – loses its agility. Training comes through mindfulness of the 4 bases and 3 aspects of mind. Body gives mind something to anchor itself on so the habits of grasping that create a fixed self can be released.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-18 Body Trains Mind 48:58
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Body provides a steady reference for mind. Mind by itself runs off and gets lost it thoughts and emotions. Body gives a place from which to review mental phenomena. Simply by paying attention to what’s happening directly in the body, the mode of attention shifts. We can use body to empty mental proliferation.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-18 Whole Body Handles Feeling 40:36
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This energy field that carries sensation doesn’t just carry sensations from the physical world, but psychologically-induced experiences as well. This is where the experience of feeling starts to move between the bodily and mental base. If we practice with the feeling base of body, we have a guide for working with mental feeling.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-07-16 Asalha Puja – Middle Path 68:28
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We can get sidetracked with a focus on mindfulness or stress reduction or meditation techniques. We don’t understand what leads up to them, the Noble 8-Fold Path. This Path begins with right view - knowing the heart and how it’s affected - and right effort - bringing up skillful mindstates.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka Vassa 2019, Opening Group Practice Retreat
2019-05-31 Closing: Keeping Citta Fit for Practice 34:22
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There are places where the mind slips and slides into injurious patterns, subtle points of misconduct that do harm. Develop qualities of sīla to guard and protect the citta, shaping it according to Dhamma rather than to worldliness or old kamma.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-30 Guided Meditation: Sharing the Blessing 50:51
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The Offering of Truth: After making the dedication of offerings, a guided meditation that invites the qualities of generosity is provided. Through this, we recall what we’ve received from teachers, parents, the earth – and the challenges that have caused us to grows. As we recollect, we offer our ongoing aspiration.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-30 Advice for Ending Retreat 10:43
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Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-30 Associating with Good People 54:35
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Associating with good people is the nutriment that leads to true knowledge and liberation. We learn what’s most important from other people, not from books and ideas. To find good people, start by being one.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-28 The Unbiased and Unwavering Heart (Upekkhā) 61:00
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Cultivating equanimity (upekkhā) begins with touching into primal sympathy. As this develops, we are more able to meet experience without shrinking from it or becoming feverish for it. This paves the way for insight and release.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-27 Learning to Linger and Appreciate (Muditā) 59:27
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Liberation begins with appreciation of one’s own heart, one’s sensitivity. Learn to linger in it, and speak to it with kindness. Gladness and ease naturally arise, and the mind becomes concentrated. This is the natural Dhamma process.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-26 Guided Meditation: Begin with Intention 60:02
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Wherever intention is, there is citta. So we begin formal meditation practice there, establishing intentions based on goodwill, sensitivity and relinquishment. With these themes resonating in one’s heart, what can be put aside now?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-26 Strengthening through Compassion (Karuṇā) 50:52
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Citta is made stronger and deeper through cultivating patience and resolution. It gains an imperturbable stillness and serenity that lets things pass through. Steady in the face of the pleasant and unpleasant alike, this ‘soft strength’ refuses to give way to the tides of ill will.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-25 Integration through Goodwill (Mettā) 63:01
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The territories of the somatic field and qualities of goodwill are offered as a clear, firm foundation for wisdom. Having cultivated them on retreat, we need to integrate liberation, purity and goodwill into our lives.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-24 The Lucidity of Careful Attention 51:05
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We use careful attention – yoniso manasikāra – to steward the meditative process. It helps us know the appropriate technique to use and to discern what is skillful to give attention to and what is not. Without it, clinging coopts experience and makes an ‘I’ out of it. With it, there is non-clinging – lucidity – and the cessation of dukkha.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-23 Dismantle the Do-er 61:06
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Contemplation of how form manifests as the 4 great elements – earth, air, fire, water. When sensed externally and internally, materially and mentally, the biases that create separateness, and hence identity, begin to soften.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-21 Nibbāna Here and Now 57:35
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The 5 aggregates represent the sum total of our conditioned experience. When the direct experience of them is penetrated, and the activations of body and mind calmed, one gains insight into the momentary, concocted, selfless nature of experience itself.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-20 Purifying Posture 11:15
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Guidance on clearing the posture of compressions and strain.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-20 Relationship – The Core of Our Practice 61:27
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The I/me sense arises within a field of kamma. This requires consistent relational practice as we respond to both phenomena (object-experience) and activations (subject-experience) in the field. Mindfulness and a good somatic sense are the keys to relate to experience without clinging or proliferation.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-18 Q&A 60:15
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1) The difference between tanhā and upādāna – which is more important to address? 2) Stream entry – what is it, what helps get to the next level, different definitions of the ‘noble disciple’. 3) Questions about citta – difference between citta and citta saṅkhāra, between mano and citta. 4) Jealously, loneliness, lack of love. 5) Ānāpānasati sutta – is it sequential, do we develop each step in every sitting? 6) Ajahn’s one word of advice. 7) Questions on identity and anattā.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-18 Commitment Is Necessary 57:03
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On the occasion of Vesak we are encouraged to make a commitment to training the heart. Then to steer the world of space and time we live in around that commitment. This is how actions (kamma) can build up helpful results and lead to the end of kamma.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-17 A Peaceful Abiding Is Possible 59:41
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We put energy into territory that can’t be under our sway, seeking security in systems and customs. What we do have sway over is this embodied mind. It can be trained to orient around wholesome qualities, and to realize that it’s most secure when clinging is released.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-17 Standing Meditation: Balance Is Conducive to Release 17:55
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The balance required in standing supports an uncontracted body. Lengthening, widening and deepening the somatic field, discordant energies, which may manifest as troubled moods, thoughts or impressions, can be ventilated and released.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge :  The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge

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