00:08 1. The word restraint brings up a lot of aversion in me. I feel as if it's an imposition on me. It is asking me to give up a known pleasure that can be felt now, or soon, for an unknown pleasure on the path that I may get to experience. It just doesn't add up. How do you see restraint? 06:33 2. You said something about how right views and virtue put the body and the mind in position that leads to right concentration and insight. I think I missed some steps. Can you clarify please? 15:24 3. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and struggle with doubt from time to time what is the nature of doubt? How can I work with it? 22:50 4. Questions about energy: a) You spoke about energy and awareness being open as opposed to closed. I have a hard time visualizing this as energy and awareness are all contained within the body. b) What's the relationship between steadiness in the flow of energy in the body and mind? c) How to turn to qualities in the bodies such as steadiness that support these same qualities in the citta? 37:56 5. What is it to be receptive? It seems receptivity also includes a skillful way of evaluating things too. Perhaps the other end of receptivity is being a doormat? 43:04 6. In walking meditation I'm learning to trust my feet to lead me to adapt to uneven terrain. However my left side gets tense. I find a reluctance to be at ease. 46:58 7. Regarding the subjects for frequent recollection, could you elaborate on the idea that the wise could find fault with my conduct.

When virtue is straight one’s view is straight, you establish mindfulness, realizing that what you do, think and say has significance. Exercising attention, awareness and intention, we develop a sense of embodiment, stabilizing attention on it.

Sitting starts at 19:40

Precepts are a vehicle for happiness and comfort for the heart – supporting that which can be liberated.

Using a retreat for internal strengthening / cleaning, starts with an inventory of where we are and what's happening. It's a deep caring for oneself and one's experience. (Offered at ATBA.)

The subtle body or energy body is a layer of experience we can explore. It's not esoteric, it's a normal part of life we can learn from. (Recorded during Ajahn's New Zealand trip)

Recorded during Ajahn's New Zealand trip

The open state is unrushed, receptive to all the six senses. It receives them with a basic intelligence that stays intact and responds.

00:18 Q1 When experiencing feelings and emotions is it part of the practice just to experience the suffering?07:59 Q2 When dealing with powerful emotions, is the foundation that you speak of built from continuous practice, being real? 17:15 Q3 If self enquiry is to bring us to a place of open heatedness, why do we carry these stories with us? How has that come about, that is has become so important to us? 33:43 Q4 Do you think that as you go on the path that you can experience suffering more? Because you are more aware of it? 46:34 Q5 How do you develop the level of understanding and insight that you have? 52:36 Q6 How can we find the balance between intentionally cultivating skillful qualities and accepting or allowing them to emerge?

In taking refuge we seek an environment where we feel we can find ourselves, be safe and grow. How can we operate in or even transform our relationship to the toxicity of the world?

We discover a sense of purpose in considering the notion of path. But the path does not lead to a place, it is the end of places.

From New Zealand - 02:19 Q1 What is the difference between heedfulness and mindfulness? 10:24 Q2 I often hear the words: “Your dukka is not personal”. There seems so much behind this but it seems this does not heal the situation in the moment. What can you say about this please? 22:37 Q3 I have a chronic illness which comes on suddenly and affects many parts of my body. I carry a lot of fear about getting sick. It affects my breathing. Can I use something other than the breath in calming myself? 27:10 Q4 I’d like a better understanding of papancha / proliferation please. 33:39 Q5 Sometimes I feel unsure of how to go about connecting with others. How can I get my social needs met without being demanding on others?

From New Zealand

Balancing effort and purifying kamma. Learn to be with what is uncomfortable, including personal mistakes. Cultivating the noble heart requires forgiveness. (at ATBA in Auckland)

How to stay at ease in the world as it is.

How do we get to what the Buddha called, the end of the world? Ajahn points to a practice of exploring the internal / subtle body and its relationship to mental serenity.

Practice is a matter of carefully noticing and moderating feeling.

Persistent mindfulness through changing conditions reveals portals to liberation: Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta.

How to withdraw energy from the mind - and why.

...(And is released from) three threads.

How to steadily warm rather than get fried.

Ajahn explores the sutta on the two acrobats, illustrating the theme of protection of oneself and others, and their inter-relationship.

Using mindfulness of the body to chill emotional reactions.

Four standard themes for reflection that turn the mind inwards towards Dhamma.

We express the precepts through our external behaviours and internally by how we react to the world. Gaining internal support for coolness and richness to discover our proper centre.

Reframing ‘Dhamma practice’ as ‘Dhamma entry’ gives us a handle on working with what arises in any aspect of our life.

We can practice by remembering that we participate in a global communion that has been going on for thousands of years, for our welfare and that of others.

Through practice we form the occasion of goodness, and this occasion forms us, strengthening composure and wisdom. This is the circularity of dhamma, of the process that transcends the specific occasion of retreat.

Remembering mindfulness is challenged when moving from retreat to an interactive domain. Attune your mindfulness to the uncertainty of life in the most basic experience of body, feeling, citta and “stuff that comes up”.

00:25 Regarding rebirth or further birth, Therevadans and Tibetans seems to have very different things to say about this. Is it useless speculation to consider what happens after death? 13:17 Can you please distinguish between kilesa, asava and anutsara? 17:41 Why is consciousness likened to an illusion? 31:22 Could you please speak about the external and internal aspect of the sense fields mentioned in the satipatthanna? 36:03 I get very stirred up when I received kindness from others. What do you suggest? 41:35 You mentioned a tendency to look for open space as related to an experience as an infant of being confined in a cradle. How did that memory and understanding come up for you? 46:09 Can you remind us about mano sancetana – what it is and how it works? 53:57 Is nibanna a description of a mind in which the defilements are uprooted or is it that which does the uprooting? 55:21 Can you speak about the significance of noticing neutral sensations? Why is this useful? 56:51 Vicara and dhamma vijaya both explore an object. How are they different or similar? 1:00:18 I’d appreciate some more specific instructions about the movements and placements of hands during the bowing ritual.

Using ritual to wrap around the day provides a stable frame to hold the circumstantial world. Its images and resonances create a place marker (nimmita) for contemplation.

These “treasures of the contemplatives” are important in the culture of gladdening the citta. In the citta’s own bounty we find what our life needs.

Puja provides a steady frame for meditation and helps to ward off dullness and stale familiarity in daily practice. Its fresh vitality undermines ingrained behaviours and attitudes.

Through retreat we learn the trigger points where the I Am occurs. We see the potential for a remedy, a liberated citta, by removing the self from the picture and trusting embodied awareness.

Recalling our moral behaviour, our generosity, we experience the joyful energy that results. Citta enters samadhi when it is gladdened.

Sometimes the heart feels trapped distracted, or passionately involved with experience. This too changes. Training the citta to know itself releases this.

Meeting what is disappointing and frustrating in an unfamiliar way and through contemplating the immediate experience of body and mind, release ownership. This reveals warm heartedness and compassion.

Citta is central to our experience of life and can be experienced separately from the energies and moods it is so involved with. It's a kind of '"awareing" that can be contemplated as sense data lands.

This embodiment practice is for simplification, a pruning that reveals harmony and harmlessness. It’s not a technique to achieve something.

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Taking off your social identity is a huge relief. Examine the qualities of heart, mind and body. Authenticity and persistence are food for the heart.

We use retreat experience to loosen up how we see and experience our habits and feelings. We see citta being shaped by clinging, being bound into the aggregates.

00:00 Retreat culture seems rather elitist in some ways. What would the Buddha make of IMS Forest Refuge? 04:13 You talked about feeling feelings, so they can move through. Any tips on how to do this without getting embroiled in negative feelings? 19:28 Can you talk about working with knots or obsessions that are very strong? 26:33 Can you speak about neutral vedena. It seems most experience is neutral. 28:46 What is meant by worldly and unworldly vedena? 30:25 What is meant by internal and external vedena? Might external mean sensitive to other beings, being sensitive to their presence? 35:30 What is the relationship of the citta, the fine material, the ordinary sensorial body and to the felt sense of embodiment?42:09 How does the citta settle into knowing? 47:28 Regarding upekkha and the other brahma vihara, when do these wholesome states become another “project”, something to do? 49:37 What’s the difference between upekkha in the brahma vihara and upekka as an enlightenment factor? 51:31 How can one fulfil ones’ duties, roles and responsibilities in a way that inclines towards letting go and releasing the sense of self? 57:54 I’ve been taught that it’s better to pause and linger at the end of the inhalation but it seems to get tight. What can you suggest?

All things converge on feeling. Using mindfulness, we can scan our experience, developing authority over feeling - and wisdom to discern how things actually are.

Body awareness notices the energy that creates form, of the body and the mind/citta. It creates a "me", a blueprint for suffering. Wisdom is an observer that is not taken over by it.

The citta is open and gets formed and filled with whatever the input is and forms a me.

Practicing to experience energies which are subtle and supple, physically and mentally. Goodwill allows the citta to flow and release stuck states.

Practicing to experience energies which are subtle and supple, physically and mentally. Goodwill allows the citta to flow and release stuck states.

There is unaware nutriment/ input and awakened input involving deep attention and the enlightenment factors. Practice helps us to spot how unawareness leads to tunnel vision.

Remember, your head doesn’t walk.

Aspects of the sutta (SN12.064) describing the four kinds of nutriment or inputs to the senses. The full sutta is here: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.064.than.html (24 words)

00:33 Can you please explain the significance of the phrase “the four pairs, the eight kinds of noble beings”; 03:11 The suttas talk of a body witness. What does this mean?; 05:10 Are consciousness, awareness and citta the same thing?; 15:13 Can you speak more about the aggregates please – rupa, vedena, sanya, sankara, vinnyana? 24:03 Could you explain context and purpose in relation to sampajañña / clear comprehension? 29:52 What is meant by “mindfulness preceding the object”. Does this precede the knowing of a specific phenomenon? 32:12 Why does the mind often feel it needs to be comfortable in order to settle? Do we need to relinquish this need? 37:51 Sometimes I get the feel g the breath doesn’t want me following it; 41:22 Some teachers suggest experiencing the breath as a concept rather than a physical sensation. Did the Buddha emphasize one over another? 46:45 I have a lot of fear arising and I send it metta-karuna but samadhi seems to make it stronger; 50:27 Pease speak about the hindrance of doubt, particularly self-doubt; 55:25 Can you speak about compassion and emptiness of self.

Aspects from the sutta on contemplating the body (MN.10). The full sutta is here: https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html

The four establishments of mindfulness and its sutta history - as well as the Bhikkhunupassaya Sutta - Directed and Undirected Meditation (SN: 47:10). Suttas available here: https://a-buddha-ujja.hu/sn-47.3/en/bodhi) and here https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn47/sn47.010.olen.html

Humans have an inner quality consciousness, an awareness that is subjective. This awareness is heart or citta and it is a refuge that can be entered for liberation.

Steady the heart by not picking up the signs of crisis or anxiety. Instead use the simple and steady body rhythms and signs that hold the heart. Make the heart the priority.

In the sensory world, boundaries, signs of separation and comparisons must be experienced. But entering the heart realm, we can experience the boundlessness of the brahma vihara.

Detecting and clearing the hindrances. (References: SN46.55 available here: https://suttacentral.net/sn46.55/en/bodhi?reference=none&highlight=false)

In meditation we open an energy domain with discernable material and immaterial aspects. We meet, widen and soften to this experience, providing a pragmatic healing and protection against life's vicissitudes.

How to bring happiness to the heart and find the balance of allowing unhappiness to be known.

Includes a 6 min introduction of its significance. A video version is available here: https://youtu.be/GkFvLoQhB8g

Puja is a form of praising and honouring. It is the nimitta of the citta, flavoured with a sense of lineage and gratitude.

00:00 Can you speak more about compassion / karuna?; 05:06 How does equanimity support compassion?; 15:32 Is there such a thing as displaced compassion?; 22:26 Please say more about walking meditation and the breath; 23:36 Please speak more about the internal process of sila and dana; 39:40 What is the role of kamma in the interplay of right view and right intention? 48:34 Are nimittas important?

As a metaphor, a circle provides a necessary sense of coherence and boundary where you can enter and establish an abiding place for practice in all body postures.

Puja and retreat structure allow energy to settle, be contained and the heart can bring forth what is meaningful in the present moment. Lingering there, sati allows access to the power of the heart.

Our ignorance of citta's nature allows craving for objects to arise, diverting the citta towards sense objects, rather than finding and resting in itself. Awareness is key to noticing and understanding this.

Skilful use of fields – of precepts, skills, virtues, relaxing the sense of self and releasing the citta from it.

In a collaborative practice with others, we relax our individualities. It sets the view, tone and energy through which we can understand and purify our own kamma.

Training precepts provide ancient themes for spiritual development, establishing boundaries of restraint. They are guardians of the world creating happiness for yourself and others.

Offering presence, offering support to our gathering includes both hard work and joyful activities. We preserve skilful states of mind by remembering the big picture - supporting an oasis of trust, peace and virtue.

Refuge is refuge in balance and harmony, what we have in common, rather than the individual. The precepts are a voluntary taking on of training rules for mindfulness.

Recollecting, stabilizing and spreading awareness over ethical sensitivity allows action in stillness and stillness in action. Thinking is just the breath of the brain, arising and passing. Pausing to find the still point.

Q1 OO:04 Does kamma in its wider implication presume the concept of rebirth? Q2 17:09 Doesn’t the need for goal orientedness in life work against practice? Q3 21:34 During meditation can I approach a personal issue that requires attention? Q4 26:17 Is it possible to be fully present with an open heart? Could you explain that please? Q5 29:35 Does slow mean mindful? Isn’t it intention that’s important? Q6 33:58 Could you talk more about annata and self please? Q7 20:14 Q8 Why does standing meditation seem more effective than sitting? Is there a time or situation where standing is recommended over other postures? Q9 43:58 How can I give back living more than I take living in Switzerland? Q10 45:22 In developing samadhi, is it possible to have periods where we have to refocus more on bodily sensations and drop the external? Q11 48:19 How can we reflect on God and Christ in dhamma practice? Q12 51:09 Restlessness is my most frequent hindrance. How do I deal with it? Q13 52:19 I contemplate death daily and often get a heavy heart about being separated from my two children. How can I come to peace with that? Q14 57:38 Could you do a brief summary of your top five wisdoms? Q15 1:03:52 If QiGong is so relaxing and low energy why do I sweat?

Practice means moving out and returning repeatedly, discovering the end of the world – our kammic predicament - that must be experienced internally, “in this very body”.

Recognizing the primary importance of the internal domain is essential for right view. Unlike other species we can cultivate love and wisdom, to benefit all creatures coming after us.

Meditation instructions are often interpreted as paying pointed attention. But wide attention allows energy and mind to decompress. Cultivating a cool awareness of the body is the key to this.

Q1 00:12 Can you say more about stream entry. What is it? Q2 19:26 Are open awareness and presence the same? Is citta who we essentially are? Q3 22:39 I find staying with the breath difficult and more conducive to sleepiness than to gratefulness. What can I do? Q4 26:59 I fight sloth and torpor that seems to be due to self inflicted isolation. Q5 31:10 Can you say more about QiGong? Why do you do this rather than yoga asanas? Q6 36:37 What is the optimal time of day to practice? Q7 38:04 A 74 year old relative is developing dementia and Altzheimers. What is happening to the mind here? Could a practice be developed in this case? Q8 46:01 How do we meet feelings of fear? Or unwanted sexual attention? Q9 47:46 How can I meet the pain caused by my father who died when I was nine? I’d like to forgive him. Q10 51:08 Can you speak more about relational field and the experience of being a human among human beings? Q11 1:04:10 What is the difference between sankara and latent tendencies?

Get a sense of this skin bag moving through space. Where do the internal and external meet? How does the body organize itself as it moves?

Learning to meet experiences we like and don't like. What meets? Cultivating space for the meetings provides understanding of our cravings and the arising of faith in our dhamma potential.

We need tools to travel in the internal body- mind domain. Developing mindfulness allows us to witness the settling and the arising of samadhi, noticing the non-events in between the events.

The ever-changing nature of experience is fundamental to Buddhist understanding. Learning how to directly apprehend these dynamic energies reveals the deathless.

01:25 Can you clarify what you said about agitation over sound and shifting it to get to the displeasure. How do you dissolve the person who is angry?; 18:54 I experience a lot of pain and have a hard time relaxing in daily life; 23:16 I have a hard time softening my eyes in daily busy life; 26:28 What is the difference between citta, mind and consciousness? What moves between life and life?; 38:37 What is pure awareness?; 40:22 Regarding energy, can you say more about how to handle physical blockages and constrictions in the body? What is the place of energy management? Is that on the path to wisdom?; 50:26 I feel trapped in my head. I can’t feel the breathing; 51:34 Restraint of the senses; 54:03 How can I handle deliberate aggression towards me?; 56:37 What’s the difference between citta and dhamma?; 57:50 What is jhana?;

The Pali description of Sangha as 'those who enter' provides a useful template for practice.

We are vulnerable to the feelings of the memories of our experience. Developing an awareness of the pitfalls of self view, liking and disliking, provides an alternative container for experience.

The citta is that which is distorted, confused hurting. Identifying it as a location of the center of experience, helps us to steady and purify the citta.

Notice the detail of what happens when you move. Get into the quality of the cohesiveness, the synchronicity of the form.

The mind’s energies and activations may contradict each other but what unifies them is the body's energy, its life force and understanding them is key to meditation and the development of mindfulness.

Our interpretation of experience is illusory and subjective. What we sense becomes fixed objects, even the human ones. Awareness allows penetration of the sense of me and offers a gift to the world.