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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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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

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