Ajahn investigates the steps of dependent co-arising. Second part of the two-part talk.

Understanding the nature of our field of attention, our intentions and our awareness provides for an adjustment of this three-part operating system.

00.36 Q1 I'm very new to meditation. Could you say more about sitting, about posture. 8.12 Q2 If I compare my practice to an elevator I seem to spend a lot of time at the top and would like to go deeper but I'm always going back up to the top again, up and down. 14.36 Q3 Having projects and things that I want to do that require determination, is that incompatible with a meditation practice? 18.35 Q4 My family have been football fans and have supported the Tottenham Hotspurs club for ages. What can you say about this? 21.32 Q5 What guidance can you give on engaging with conflict? 28.47 Q5 What can I do if the values of my friends and acquaintances don't fit with mine? 30.42 Q6 Regarding stream entry, do path and fruit happen simultaneously or does one come after the other?

This is the epitome of the Buddha's practice. As we practise abandoning our holding on to anything, we can learn how this 'need to hold' is a normal but subversive aspect of our experience.

Questions are précised and read into the file.This text is shortened further. 00.51 Q1 You said we create an imaginary world for our imaginary selves. Some people believe in the power of visualization where we can imagine a better world or a better self. 03.05 Q2 Please distinguish consciousness, the mind and the brain. 05.57 Q3 You use the word heart, but you don't use the word brain. 12.36 Q4 If there's no distinction between you and I, is there just a oneness? 13.00 Q5 Is the citta permanent? 14.13 Q6 A friend said her response to a car alarm was the same as her response to bird song. Where is the place for beauty in this? 15.29 Q7 In walking meditation, do we feel the movement and sense what your mind is doing with that experience? 21.28 Q8 Some thought patterns seem like some kind of karmic knot. They're not comfortable and yet I keep going into them. 25.08 Q9 What can I offer my dying friend to support balance for them? 32.20 Q10 Can thoughts just arise randomly? 37.02 Q11 If someone cheats us, do we just forgive them and move on? 41.18 Q12 I find that many of my interactions, conversations and what I do to work seem to be just abstractions and distractions. My desire to live more in dhamma makes me avoid people without this interest. 46.58 Q13 Do thoughts always arise from feelings? 50.03 Q14 What is time as an experience? 01.00.57 Q15 Where does collective consciousness fit into this? 01.03.09 Q16 How can we plan for the future and avoid the pitfalls of 'becoming'? 01.04.52 Q17 How to use Buddhist practice to deal with trauma and serious anxiety? 01.10.10 Q18 Is the teaching of no satisfaction /suffering more than 'there's no permanent satisfaction'? 01.13.34 Q19 It seems like the more I examine my own suffering, the more compassion I have for other people.

Finding balance means bringing our life-energies - thinking, emotions and embodied presence – into an even balance.

Mental balance is extremely precarious given the world of pushing and pulling that we live in. Finding and stabilizing presence in the eye of this hurricane can take time, but it's possible.

Establishing, reflecting on and enjoying the fruits of cultivation is an ongoing heart process.

Ajahn investigates the steps of dependent co-arising. First part of a two-part talk.

The aim of cultivation is the release from the stress, craving, and fear that sense consciousness creates.

Wisdom is a liberator that is supported by the sense of a stable center that develops with samadhi.

Retreat is a renunciant experience recommended by the Buddha. Through this we can clarify and collect our centre.

Our ability to contemplate provides enormous potential to get perspective on the changingness of the forms that characterise experience.

The faith that there IS a way out is an important component of our practice, leading to a directly known heart-realization of the truth of the constant flux of experience.

The relative harmony of the diverse forms and energies that arise on retreat give one a sense of personal wholeness and support shared benefits.

Gathering and collecting into one pointedness takes time for settling. A retreat invites us; it leads us to gain purpose and engenders faith and skilful effort.

The Buddha’s teaching is crucial and profound for the world. It points to the clinging and owning that disfigures our world – and how to give that up.

00:42 Q1 How can one protect one’s axis/ centre after a retreat is over? 11:55 In daily life my system gets stuck in a previous experience with someone. Although they have left, the turmoil is still there and I feel stuck.

We are always in the centre of our lives, always present, always here.

We use our attention as if it’s a bird finding a place to land and find stable ground.

Questions are précised; one live question (Q3) was précised and read into the file: 00:08 Q1 Could you say a few words about dealing with traumatic memories or body memories. 13:47 Q2 I fear that I am not able to connect with non-self. Can you say more about non-self. 20:27 Q3 When I was sitting my timer went off and there was a vague voice that was encouraging and reassuring me that whatever issues I face can be resolved. I find this very exciting. What do you think is happening here?28:34 Q4 If a part of our being nature gets accessed by a higher paced energy, can sati and a slower mode of being lead to loosing access to sides of our being?

Take responsibility for your life. What is it about? What's needed? Remember to enter the presence of your entire body, and wait for things to be revealed.

Questions are précised: 00:00 Q1 What do you mean by “re-wilding your mind”? 19:59 Q2 What’s the relation between pitti, sukka and chi. 25:05 Q3 Which comes first after sense contact, sannya (impression/ perception) or vedena (the feeling)? 28:00 Q4 Does the third sattipatana (the establishments of mindfulness) only include citta of mano / manus? 34:21 (LB) Q5 How to contemplate the “gunky” parts of the body – the organs that get diseased etc. 41:35 Q6 I have a sense of the experience of annica like a connection to dynamism. Impermanence has a very time bound quality to it. 42:31 Q7 How can one develop one’s yoniso manisakara to keep attention turned inwards?

Unplugging our normal drivers and moving into retreat can be an uncomfortable experience. Use it as an occasion to strengthen presence through embodiment.

The day starts with a sense of decisive engagement but confusion frequently masks this and we get run by external conditions. Breathing is an animate centre that allows perspective.

Ajahn reviews some of the teachings during the retreat so far and urges us to use our potency as individuals.

00:05 Before encountered the dhamma I always thought that problems required solutions. You say they need spaciousness, openness and patience. What then is the place for mental strategies and solutions.

There is a heart place that experiences reverberations and exasperation. It seems that this is me. Keep asking: What and where is this me?

00:05 Q1 (AS) You talked about protection during the QiGong. How does protection happen without closure? 09:39 Q2 (LB) Could you explain how the citta can cleanse sankaras? 17:05 (AS response). 36:04 Q3 (AS) Given that I struggle to maintain focus even on a narrow object, it’s very hard to bring the whole body into awareness . Any hints? 45:02 (LB response).

Self and other, life and death, body and mind are some of the basic fragmentations causing stress. Practice allows a healing wisdom to arise.

Understanding the aggregates allows us to see our world is a tangled web of conditions that needs untangling not tearing.

We use puja to exercise and develop our heart quality of honouring and respecting.

We use our practice for understanding the direct and intimate experience. This experience cannot be predicted, imposed or demanded, but it arises, offering itself for our careful attention.

The initial disorientation of entering a retreat is useful. It reveals how familiarity breeds stagnation, blinding us to the deeper reality and vitality of being alive.

Our life is the ever-changing experience of ourselves and the world around us - internally and externally. Cultivating goodwill provides stability for piloting this interaction.

Forms and our responses to them are always arising and passing away, including the form called "retreat". The learning that comes from using these forms is independent of these changes. It requires our tenacity.

Questions are précised - 00:15 Q1 What’s the difference between QiGong and standing meditation? 02:34 Q2 Is there a specific QiGong for meditation? 03:00 Q3 What is the proper balance between sitting, standing and walking? 04:49 Q4 Can you speak more about the forms of knowing described in the satipatanna sutta? 20:38 Q5 What’s a helpful sequence of steps to take in a meditation?28:16 Q6 I find a lot of energy goes into the head when I meditate. What do you suggest? 30:20 Q7 Normally I find in my meditation there is a subtle feeling of pushing or trying. If that is acknowledged there is more of a sense of flowing and playfulness. How can I cultivate this more consistently? 33:36 Q8 I had a very nice walking meditation experience with gratitude and opening. Then there were feelings of fragility and vulnerability. What can you advise? 36:01 Q9 I find myself getting very frozen or locked when I go into my job responsibilities. What’s happening here? 39:19 Q10 We talk about safety and feeling secure. I think this attachment is not the same as the attachment we talks about in Buddhism. What do you think?

Centring ourselves in the middle way, between extremes of indulgence or denial allows us to observe and moderate our responses to sense phenomena, especially thought.

Questions précised – 00:09 Q1 What is energy? 23:02 Q2 I get involuntary shaking sometimes in meditation. If I focus on the skin it helps to dissolve this. What is this please? 28:31 Q3 Tuning into my body I find tension from unreleased aggression and images that are not always pleasant. What do you suggest? 32:44 Q 4 Sometimes I experience dropping out of identification into an open clear spacious presence. It mostly lasts only half a second and then I get pulled back into self-identification. How can I make it longer or more permanent? 34:58 Q5 Don’t meditation and attentive awareness stimulate and arouse? Don’t they sometimes arouse supportive activation of the heart and spirit? I find sometimes this is a bit of a strain or tiring because I feel in the grip of it. 36:55 Q6 What nourishes the daily practice on your own? Regarding daily offerings, what are some examples of that? 43:07 Q7 Can you speak about the value of renunciation? 44:47 Q8 What should one do with one’s talents? Excelling involves competition for leader ship roles and in that the moral compass gets bent.

Becoming familiar with direct experience, we can put aside the need for reaction and immediate action, allowing us to cultivate the liberating view.

Questions précised – 00:06 Q1 What’s the importance of the lotus posture for practice? As a beginner I can’t sit like that but also I don’t feel good using a chair 05:34 Q2 Is awakening possible for a lay practitioner of mindfulness meditation such as I practice, or is this just a lost cause? 19:57 Q3 I have been doing sitting meditation almost daily for almost 30 years. There are good days when my attention is stable and I feel unified. But more frequently my experience becomes stagnant and I don’t know where to turn my attention and I feel bored, inadequate. 27:47 Q4 It’s so limiting to identify with a self. Why, when we have perfection in us is it so difficulty to see the truth? 38:42 Q5 Sometimes I see light around people or objects and sometimes things seem transparent with light. Can you say something about this? 39:38 Q6 I’m concerned about my daughter with obsessive compulsive disorder. What can you recommend? 42:15 Q7 Is it possible to overdue investigation? Sometimes it feels that investigating frozen states seems more like prodding rather than compassion. 43:18 Q8 How can I feel connected to people who don’t share the same values and vision of life? I feel lonely and angry when I’m with them.

We're always at the centre of our lives. It is there that we can contemplate sense experience and emotional energy that underlies it.

Questions précised - 00:16 Q1 Is it possible to start waking up and still have a mind that is clinging or fixating at times? What are the characteristics of awakening? 14:27 Q2 Sometimes there are moments where everything is gone or stops, with no thoughts or awareness f an outside world. Time seems to be gone as well. Can you say something about this?16:21 Q3 It seems the heart needs to be allowed to know itself. When with family and partner there seems to be no possibility for this. This is desperately uncomfortable which doesn’t resolve and is filled with fear. Can you offer some guidance. 22:54 Q4(a) I feel parts of the body frozen in anxiety. Spacious awareness and reclining help. What else would help? Patience? (b) I get feelings of joy, gratitude then contentment. When contentment arises I feel the desire to move on rather than stay with it. What can I do about this? (c) What can I do if the energy flow gets overwhelming say with sickness? 34:46 Q5 What would you say to a teenager who seems to have ill will in the family? 36:44 Q6 No matter how good meditation is in the previous evening, there will come sleep and with it the end of awareness. Next morning we have to start again.

The cultivation of wisdom allows us to manage the information cascading into our lives.

Questions précised - 00:06 Q1 A lot is said about ‘moving away from’. Could you also say something about moving towards? 15:31 Q2 When I have pain while sitting I usually practice with the pain until I feel there may be a risk to my health, for example by restricting blood flow in the leg for too long. Any ideas on this please? 17:23 Q3 Regarding sleepiness while witting, I discovered that by surrendering to it my body deeply rests and then the mind is bright again. Any comments please? 21:52 Q4 Meditation doesn’t allow me to gather energy but actually dissipates it. Why does this happen? 30:53 Q5 I live in a country where’s there’s a lot of suffering and misery and this often throws me into a state between empathy and impotence. What can you advise please? Q6 34:40 I live in the midst of great fear, witnessing emotional hostility. Where do actions and decisions and wise reflection play a part in helping but if I do too much the thinking mind goes astray. What is your advice please? 37:31 Q7 How does one we free oneself from jealousy and comparison? 40:12 Q8 How can we help others who are suffering but believe they are happy?

The relentless bombardment by signals to activate ourselves and evoke heart movement can be noticed.

(Questions précised) - 00:32 Q1 Could you please explain what you mean by the cosmos? 16:16 Q2 When you say feeling”, do you mean vedena or more complex emotions? 20:32 Q3 How can one be with emotions and not in them? 33:33 Q4 Could you talk more about tanha and its relationship to sanya and dukkha. 44:21 Q5 In one of the guided meditations, you mentioned getting in touch with joy. How can we do that when it can feel completely absent.

Practicing composure, collectedness and stability enables us to be wise and compassionate towards forms that arise from both internal and external domains.

Puja means honouring, revering and praising, bringing our hearts into the path of purity, of harmlessness.

Let voice become a special experience, using it fully and carefully to experience the mutuality of the cosmos. Making and receiving sounds is a wonderful interactive experience.

The dhamma is an amazing inheritance that allows us to experience the fullness of being a human being, inheriting and participating in the entire cosmos of material and immaterial experience.

Practice means bringing ourselves into line with and sensing a dhamma transmission that is thousands of years old.

Dhamma Culture and the forest ajahns

Description pending - a talk to Little Bangkok Sangha

Description pending

The Buddha's Awakening and release came through firm intent and rigorous inquiry into the roots of mental behaviour: something we can all practise.

To internalize Buddha, we can direct mindfulness to each of the four bodily postures. Through these they will guide our psychologies to balance and steadiness in the midst of conditions.

Description pending

00:18 Whenever I tell someone about my worries or problems I'll be told to think positive. Does positive thinking accord with the teaching of the buddha? 06:16 I've been practicing with the satipatana sutta, establishing mindfulness. Often I get confused with the words "externally and internally" parts of the awareness practice. Can you help please? 24:37 I'm working on opening, meeting and releasing with the sympathetic attitude. I've noticed some joy and yet in unexpected circumstances I've become defensive and angry and this leads to shame. What do you advise? 30:50 If I can't get to a center where there is a more authentically embodied practice, could I practice with traditions that are more disembodied? 33:20 You mentioned the Great Forty sutta (https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN117.html) regarding the basis of samadhi. Surely it needs the five precepts to be steadfast in right view etc? 37:44 As individuals we have creative potential, skills etc. Do we invite that unique particularity to manifest in our lives?

The different Buddhist traditions span many cultures and languages, exploring this psycho-spiritual sphere, using a stable body as its theme, free of greed and delusion. The teachings point to experiencing an end to the preoccupation with phenomena.

We build awareness of the many ways in which heart intentions are responses to energy streams. Goodwill and selflessness are key to shedding the ‘me’ sense and understanding the power of the streams that create it.

Ajahn describes the framework of factors that the human body and mind have that receive experience. Walking instruction at 32:29

00:09 Q1 Could you speak about the experience of thinking and emotions. 06:09 Q2 I feel I have no control. The music in my mind keeps playing, I feel I am going mad. How can I cultivate mindfully without making thoughts and stories stronger. 20:59 Q3 How can I deal with grief over loosing loved ones? 28:19 Q4 Is it normal to feel warm and perspire during sitting meditation? 32:56 Q5 Does it matter how you place the hands during sitting meditation? 35:40 Q6 When one sees the light – I guess this is meditation nimitta – do you focus on the breath or follow the light? 37:47 Q7 [Should one] place attention on the entire body even when walking? 47:43 Q7 I have scoliosis and am uncomfortable in every position. Are there techniques to help with body and mental pain skillfully when I meditate? 52:59 Q8 Regarding the 12 links of dependent origination, which link is the weakest? 59:46 Q9 How do we enter the stream? 01:01:45 Q10 Can you elaborate on what you said about what Sariputta and Moggallana understood regarding the arising of the Tathagata?

Questions are précised 00:15 Q1 Can you clarify why the Buddha recommended sense restraint in cultivating citta? What harm does sense desire to the citta? 04:20 Q2 I have a picture that the sense organs are shooting stuff into the citta. Is that correct? 12:42 Q3 How can I overcome sound distractions to focus more on my breathing ? 18:59 Q4 The Buddha said, light arose and vision arose. What does this mean? 20:27 Q5 If we trust in awareness, would this lead to attachment to citta and become another soul? 24:09 Q6 I feel emotions deeply and am sometimes affected by other being seen and unseen, like ghosts. Also getting angry gives me power and sometimes I feel that metta softens and weakens myself to others. How can I protect citta, one’s sensitivity? 30:45 Q7 How to distinguish between self-care and attachment?

What we attend to and what we leave out needs wise assessment. This leads to a deepening of wisdom and the abandonment of daily compulsive habits.

We interact with experience as it happens, liking, disliking and bearing with. Developing a quality of balance provides for the end of personal dissatisfaction.

00:15 Can you clarify what is citta? And the asavas? 31:02 Q2 What is meant by nimitta? I’ve never experienced a light nimitta, but I experience calm and peace after I meditate. How can I go deeper into this? Q3 34:31 How can one speed up the process of becoming a stream enterer? 45:26 Q4 How do we practice mindfulness in daily life?

Examine how things become signs that catch our attention and enter our heart. Understanding the process can lessen delusion and provide us with protection and the development of wisdom.

Circumstances and changing events both shape our worldly life and allow growing insight into the inability to control events. We can learn what lies beyond circumstances.

Questions are précised: 00:00 Q1 What conditions the in breath and the out breath? Are the in and out breath, one breath? 30:51 Q2 I understand that after achieving samadhi one must do vipassana. Or there’s a need to direct the mind or to know what to see or look out for. 47:45 Q3 On retreat, every time the energy body unlocks some more space in my physical body and seems to open into a relaxing garden. Then it retreats. What’s your advice for my energy body to stay in the garden a bit longer? 51:31 Q4 Is it a must to see past lives to penetrate on the path? 52:34 Q5 I’m afraid of being born without wisdom and beauty. How can make sure I will always be close the dhamma in my next lives? 59:07 Q6 How can I establish daily meditation practice? What’s a good amount of time?

The seeds of practice take time to germinate and grow.

What is awareness? Where is it? What is ‘mind’ (manas).

Description pending

Walking meditation

1. How do you handle fear and doubt? 13:27 2. Can you explain the difference between mental feeling and emotional feeling? 16:30 3. I experience angry and unproductive thoughts over damage caused by the neighbours over 15 years. What do you suggest? 26:55 4. I experienced bullying when I was at school and I picked up a habit of trying to sleep through my classes inform the connection between aversion and drowsiness. Can you offer some suggestions please? 31:58 5. My main practice is practicing metta. Is it important to develop my meditation and walking practice alongside metta? 40:18 6. There's a negative mind state that I thought I should investigate but seem to have no energy to do so. As I continued to practice the mind state disappeared. Is it still important to investigate in case this complete lack of purpose and meaning returns?

The mass of suffering seems impenetrable. But through practice we see it's actually a weave, a net, which is mostly space.

The poetic nature of puja allows one to enter, touch the mind and know it directly.