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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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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

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