Mindfulness of these four areas: body, sensitivity, heart and emotional and psychological phenomena prevent us from being deluded.

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.