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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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2019-05-05 Open the Heart to the Beautiful and Good 1:17:50
Cultivate the quality of intention rather than objects of attention. Intention is broader, it encompasses everything. Correct intention neither holds on, nor resists. The quality of anukampā – primary sympathy – from which mettā arises. Puja acts as an emblem, it resonates meanings that open the heart. Beyond the physical body or personal state, rise up to the sign of the beautiful, worthy, admirable and the good.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-05 Standing Meditation: Balance and Alignment Enable Letting Go 41:38
A guided meditation to establish a balanced upright posture upon which the rest of the body can relax and let go. It may not do so quickly, so be patient with how the body actually is, always attending with a mind of sympathy and goodwill.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-05 Intention Is Primary, Attention Is Secondary 51:41
Attention forms a focus that is by definition, only a part of the whole field (especially the visual focus). So if a ‘watchful’ focus is making your practice tense and try, relax attention and cultivate intention – it covers it all. Intention has a certain motivation, it steers attention. The intention for freedom from stress and pain is what citta is looking for.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Notes on Ānāpānasati 40:06
Referring to the text, see what’s not there – there’s no mention of one-pointed attention. This is a common misunderstanding. Consider instead a one-pointed intention, to bear in mind, and return again and again to the process of breathing.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Where There Is No Faith There Is No Practice 38:27
Fabricated formations, such as clock time, are useful for some things but not for liberation. Use the ritual of puja to transcend circumstantial reality; recognize there is a place in citta to stand outside of self – in faith and devotion. The belief that an end to suffering is possible is the initiator of Dhamma practice. Where there is no faith there is no practice.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Standing Meditation for Energy and Vitality 22:33
When standing we don’t stand stiff, but fluid. Balanced posture and alignment allow muscles to release so energy can move through the form in a supportive way. Over time we become supported by the body’s energy rather than its muscles.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-04 Do What Will Undo 49:51
How to peel off the layers of saṅkhāra? Do with an intent to undo. Although we unconsciously give energy to our hindrances and programs, if we withdraw energy and interest, they wither. This is right effort. When citta is cleared of hindrances and is no longer pulled out into the abstract, it gains its own strength and you can trust it.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Breathing Forms the Body 14:34
What is the body? Not the picture of it but the direct experience of it. Referring to instructions given in the Ānāpānasati Sutta, guidance is given to directly experience the body in its diverse manifestations of energy, feeling and sensation. Breathing in, breathing out, allow the process to occur at its own rate and stay with what’s unfolding for you.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Our Place of Practice Is Direct Knowing 39:34
Dhamma practice is the channel for direct experience: that which is entered through the door of feeling. This is not the ‘mental’ knowing: the somatic sense responds to feeling. Your place of practice is this direct ‘feeling-knowing’ – pājānati – through mindfulness of the body.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Standing Meditation: Grounded and Firm, Yet Supple and Fluid 26:20
A guided meditation to fully feel the body, filling out the length, width and thickness of the entire bodily form. This upright yet relaxed posture is firm and allows energy to freely flow.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-03 Discharging Dukkha 56:53
Residues of the heart empty into the body and its vitality gets clogged. We tend to recycle the damage, returning to the scene of the crime, trawling the residues that haven’t discharged as resentment, unworthy, the need to be something else. To discharge this dukkha, we use the somatic field, which gives an energetic release. A mind of goodwill – patient and loving acceptance – will ease the process.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2019-05-02 Using Body to Train the Mind 20:43
The primary sense of settling doesn’t come from the mind but from embodiment. So, calm and soothe the somatic energies of the body by resonating the meanings of ‘safe’ and ‘welcome’. This is how one uses the body to train the mind, and aspiration to settle the body.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-07 Relational Dhamma 24:20
Input given at the 2018 Beatenberg Meeting
Meditationszentrum Beatenberg
2018-12-04 47 Refuge Mantra Chant 5:34
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 46 Evening Chanting Pali 12:14
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 45 Morning Chanting English 10:22
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 44 Morning Chanting Pali 13:09
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-04 43 Dedication of Offerings and Vipassanabhumi chant 20:06
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-03 42 Closing: This Is Going to Hurt – Get Used to It 27:44
Time on retreat can be intense, but strength and skills are gained when we can meet the difficulties of our lives. The encouragement is to sustain regular occasions of sitting with the Buddha. Prompts for review and reflection are offered.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-03 41 Brahmavihāra Follow Up 21:15
Following up from the brahmavihāra guided meditation, the powerful potential of the practice is described. Taken in depth, these qualities offer a means for feeling steady and comfortable, a home base from which to clear fear mistrust and loss of heart.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-03 40 Guided Meditation: Brahmavihāras 56:09
Cultivation of the brahmavihāras is based upon generating perceptions and felt senses through various bases. This guided meditation refers to the bodily and mental bases, in addition to primary sympathy – anukampa – as the underlying basis, to bring these boundless qualities into fullness. They then can serve as soothing orientations within the tribulations of this human realm.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-02 39 Q&A 45:43
How does one maintain one’s center in the world? What are the 8 worldly “winds” and how to relate to them? What do we ask forgiveness for from Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha in evening chanting? How to balance energy between personal practice and moral duty to respond to suffering in the world?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-02 38 Release 46:33
Practicing for release follows the trajectory of knowing (ñāṇa) and culminates in realization (aññā). We review the aggregates with dispassion, recognizing their causal basis, and stop taking them to be self. Devotional practices support the shift from self-consciousness to trackless consciousness where self, other, future, past are no longer concocted. This is the turning towards the deathless.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-12-01 37 Passing of Difficult Feeling 54:54
The inability to feel difficult emotions causes closure of heart and body. If things haven’t been allowed to arise, they don’t pass. Using the practice of calming and insight, we calm just enough to make difficult feeling manageable and let it move through the body, then apply the skill of insight to look into just this experience without proliferation. Dispassion, clarity, and a wide attentive heart remain.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-30 36 Q&A 35:05
Relationship of tanha to chanda. How to arouse urgency for someone whose sankharas are geared more toward on desire? How to contemplate kamma as an object? How does wholesome “becoming” (bhava) happen?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-30 35 This Dhamma Is for Elimination of Stress 44:33
[Citing from AN4:171] The ignorance that underlies volition conditions our ways of perceiving and being. As a result we bring stress and pressure into our bodies, hearts and minds. We train to come out of this by moderating attention and gentle persistence to everyday tasks. Communing with nature is also a resource.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-29 34 Q&A 3:30
Is mano essentially the same as citta sankhara;? Is there awareness besides sense consciousness? Clarification between sati/mindfulness and citta. Is mindfulness of body necessary for liberation, why? Difference between circumstances and conditions; how to “eradicate” self-view.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-29 33 Resetting Your World 55:48
Referring to the Madhupiṇḍika Sutta, The Honeyball, (MN18), Ajahn Sucitto describes a two-fold training to get a handle on and curtail mental proliferation. Citta can be trained through deliberate attention to starve afflictive intentions, and to instead establish pāramī tendencies towards renunciation, clarity and patience.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-28 32 Ajahn’s Advice - Play More 51:12
The Buddha’s instructions for gladdening the mind are not to be skimmed over. Without qualities such as gladness and appreciation we approach practice through the highly conditioned, self-conscious personality. Gladdening must directly touch the citta which cannot be reached through the rational mind or personality. Ajahn suggests accessing citta through imagination and play.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-26 31 Body - The Last Outpost of Sanity 55:10
The experience of the aggregates doesn’t have to lead to suffering. Addressing the form aggregate of body, Ajahn Sucitto describes ways it teaches us, purifies the heart and mind, and can act as a source of refuge for our long-lasting welfare and benefit.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-25 30 Q&A 1:13:38
Translation of vipassana bhumi chant; clarificiation around sutta passage that asserts that a female could never become a Buddha; why we chant the Refuge Mantra 9 times; questions around working with perception; skillful contemplation of independence; taking pleasure from food; how to recognize and clear blocked energy in the body
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-25 29 Returning to Center 53:17
Citta takes the five khandhå as truth, placing faith in them to be reliable and satisfying. The Buddha likened them to murderous thieves, not trustworthy. Truth is found in our center, not the peripherals. This is where our liberation potential lies.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-24 28 The Luminous Citta 27:56
The aggregates themselves are not problematic, it’s our blind, desperate clinging to them that causes suffering. It’s possible for citta to radiate into the aggregates and into our lives. First what’s needed is the act of withdrawing into a place of refuge to collect and gather. Then the act of integration, bringing qualities of calm, kindness, resolve into our spee
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-23 27 Don’t Go into Things until You Can Stay Out of Them 41:53
We need firm ground to stand on before meeting the difficulties of our lives. Without that firm place, the difficulties don’t unravel –you unravel. With cultivation of the five spiritual faculties – indriyas – they become rock solid, enabling us to stand back from experience and allow it to unravel and pass.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-22 26 Fields as a Way of Experiencing Phenomena 16:45
In a field of experience, qualities that are assumed to be other people, entities or myself because of the way they’re stuck together can be seen as specific factors that are pliable and flexible. “Field awareness” means a wider span of attention where suppressed, unnoticed, unresolved energies can arise and be discharged, purifying the bodily field.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-22 25 What Sustains a Steady Heart Energy? 49:41
Compulsive problematic activations can be replaced with conscious deliberate ones aimed at liberation. Whether in daily activities or in the action of meditation, we can steady and calm energy by orienting around skillful signs – generosity, service, clarity – until the mind is comforted and no longer flowing down old tracks.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-22 24 Place Attention Directly on the Here and Now 29:37
There is a different way to meet what arises rather than through our conditioned perceptions, one free of self, other people, the future. Place attention on what’s arising directly as it is.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-21 23 Ānāpānasati – A Model for Cultivation and Freedom 53:34
In the search for happiness, we generally only experience the search, marked by discomfort or desperation. Relationship is key. The instructions for ānāpānasati train us to develop a more dispassionate relationship where we learn to stand in the presence of, or witness from, the edge of experience. From here the right kind of relationship, marked by non-expectation and non-aversion, can be cultivated.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-19 22 Leave Space for Miracles 54:00
The cultivation of samatha is to be able to direct one’s intentions and attention away from the afflictive activations, settling into a place where they’re not happening. This place of cooling and ceasing is to be lingered in. Here we come out of the personality and into the realm of the miraculous.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-18 21 Standing Meditation: Where There Is No Activation in the Body 40:13
The theme of this meditation is to move attention from more activated areas to parts that have no activation at all. Beginning with the sense of balance and cohesion, guidance is provided to sense through the entire body, sustaining a soft attitude with no time frame, a quality of very little effort.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-18 20 Review of Four Points for Orientation 42:29
A review of the four points recommended to orient around: 1) The sacred - virtue and truth, 2) other people, 3) the subtle body/body energies, 4) nature. These are means for becoming more embodied and heartful, and regaining our natural intelligence.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-17 18 Brahmavihara Cultivation for a Happy Abiding 47:27
The qualities of goodwill, compassion, gladness and equanimity can be cultivated to generate a subtle form, a subtle state of consciousness. Abiding and lingering in these qualities, citta sustains consciousness in that mode, sees objects in that light, and experiences itself in that light making human life manageable, fruitful, enjoyable.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-17 19 Q&A 62:17
How to clear stuck sankharas (greed/overeating, fear); clarifying samatha, vipassana, samādhi; clarifying language: rūpa, nāma-rūpa
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-16 17 Intention and Effort 63:58
Take away the track of conditioned intentions – better, more efficient, goal orientation. Learn to sense into the intention of the citta here and now. Effort informed by the spiritual faculties is a means to stave off hindrances. The first right effort is to dwell in what is skillful.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-16 16 Nothing Works - Get Used to It 61:13
Our conditioning and underlying programs have us aiming at unattainable benchmarks. We come to believe it’s possible to make everything work, make things efficient, clear, comfortable. But this only sets us up for suffering. So we practice to purify intention and attention, widening the range of what our citta can bear with and accommodate. We’re then able to be with the uncomfortable without suffering.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-15 15 Learning to Cultivate Relationship 61:41
We can learn to relate to the conditioned world with a sense of knowing it doesn’t work, dealing with the inevitable clashes and frictions with a mind that is spacious, that can digest the chafing. Nourish and strengthen citta through qualities of goodwill, patience and acceptance facilitate disengagement. Then the heart is not troubled by things not going its way.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-14 14 Sangha Heals Afflictions of Exclusion 50:17
With devotional practices we choose to direct ourselves in terms of awakening. Pūjā gives the occasion to settle in our Refuge quality rather than our personal kamma. This is the way we build up a reference point to cultivate and clear the kamma of the person within the field of sangha.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-14 13 Soothing and Steadying Body Energies 53:33
The deeply ingrained reactivity to jump from unpleasant feeling is saṇkhāra. We leave the richness and intelligence of embodiment for the virtual world of programs and drives. Steadying and stabilizing the bodily energies with ānāpānasati develops a different kind of saṇkhāra, one that responds to phenomena with non-demand and acceptance.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-12 12 Nourishing the Citta 47:31
Creating a feedback loop to keep citta refreshed and nourished strengthens our ability to meet the uncomfortable. This can’t be done through the virtual realm of the intellect; take time every day to touch into bodily presence without adjusting anything or turning away. That steady presence becomes the place of regeneration and refreshment.
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge
2018-11-11 11 Q&As 53:17
Q1: ways of strengthening the citta; Q2 31:37 How can one best work with the citta? Q3 34:01 What is the relationship of intuitive awareness to the citta? Q4 36:56 Could you say something more about the sacred? Q5 40:10 greed and aversion – are they two sides of the same coin? Can one exist without the other? Q6 46:46 What is animita (signless) samādhi as opposed to nimitta samādhi or jhāna?
Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge November 6 - December 4 2018 at IMS - Forest Refuge

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