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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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2022-01-18 Presence and Sharing It 57:15
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Wherever you are, you’re always present. We tend to focus on what we’re present with, the sights and sounds, but what’s the capacity to be present with them? Remove the fear, agitation, craving, imagined hostility of other people – these block presence. Presence is a certain stability, freedom from regret and agitation, goodwill towards myself and others. This is the most peaceful abiding.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-17 Q&A 57:31
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00:30 Questions about meditation; 16:01 What is awareness of awareness? Difference in mano, manas, citta and viññāṇa; 26:00 How to deal with impatience and restlessness; 30:27 How to know if I’m cultivating well; 31:37 Obsessive compulsive disorder; 36:47 Meditation on the 32 parts of the body; 39:54 When thoughts stop and fade away; 41:10 How to deal with death and loss; 43:20 Standing meditation; 45:02 Easier to recognize some feelings but not others; 48:42 Conditionality, saṇkhāra and the aggregates.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-17 Aspiration Drives the Vehicle 50:52
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By and large we’re looking for the ending suffering, for the possibility of bringing forth what’s good. This is the realm of citta, it wishes to do good. This body is just a tool, to do good deeds with, to work with this person, rather than being it. It’s a vehicle to bring forth the good, the true, the beautiful. Don’t be deceived by appearances, this is a transformation. Bring forth your aspiration vehicle.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-16 Q&A 54:26
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00:53 Please explain the idea of the pāramī; 04:59 Letting go of thinking/expectation; 07:44 Using the sound of silence in practice; 15:58 How Qigong connects to practice; 24:47 Tension in tongue and jaw; 25:03 Remaining “upright and joyful”; 29:23 Family does not agree with my practice; 34:13 Dealing with pain; 38:10 Experience of a deep horrific fear; 43:45 Out of body experiences while meditating; 45:19 Relationship between release of somatic knots and releasing the citta; 48:55 Regrets and resentment; 50:13 Can you speak about the āsava? 53:37 Difference between peace, serenity and tranquility? Pīti and sukha?
Cittaviveka
2022-01-16 Return to a True Shape 52:31
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The natural shape of the heart when it’s not dragged out by the sense world has the quality of stable well-being to it. This is the highest happiness. Do what you can do from good intention, restraint and kindness. Keep returning to that because that’s your home base where your heart is naturally able to express itself, manifest its values and qualities into your life.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-15 Q&A 36:36
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00:40 Guidance on the reclining position; 08:48 Managing energy, not overexerting but staying diligent; 15:06 Samādhi process as a settling “downwards” of the citta; 16:17 How can we meditate on space in the body; 22:08 How to distinguish cultivation from craving to become; 24:27 What weakens resolve; 26:29 Feelings of disappointment and resentment; 31:25 Feeling like the “I” was inclining to drop but felt stuck in recent meditation.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-15 Psychology and Neurology 37:53
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The theme of mindfulness of breathing is to regulate so our bodily system comes into a moderated state. When heart-mind tunes into that it naturally gives rise to beneficial psychologies – simplicity, generosity, sympathy, warmth. When we begin to take in the qualities of our good actions, it helps to repair our nervous system so it’s no longer so tense, irritable, jumpy or feeling so guilty – things shift. That’s the process. Therefore, we should cultivate this way.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-15 Commitment to Integrity 38:34
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Heart-mind will be shaped by whatever we put our attention into, so aim to shape it with supportive influences. A commitment to integrity will shape the mind to be steady, strong, confident, reliable. Shape it around refuges and precepts, for your own welfare and the welfare of others.
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society :  Well-being Is the Shape of the Heart
2022-01-12 Liberation Is a Careful, Everyday, Process 37:02
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Of all the things to be sensitive about, the most urgent and important, is to know how you’re activated and to calm the citta saṇkhāra. We get morphed by what we plug into, so unplug and let go of the unskillful, and plug into what’s necessary for calming and steadying. It takes time for citta to get it. Keep making an effort with friendliness, aligning everything in our lives to support this present awareness.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2022-01-11 Wisdom - The Intelligence that Leads to Stillness 40:07
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The cultivation of wisdom is not just a matter of intellectually knowing something, it’s a practice of handling, and staying in touch with what’s felt. Steadying citta so it can come out of its fixed gripped state, there’s a turning towards dispassion and right response. Stay in touch with the process, do the process and see where it goes – that’s how you learn.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2022-01-10 Cracking the Shell Is Pleasant 39:29
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The process of cultivation is a pleasant one of cleaning away the dross and delusions that cause us suffering and stress. Drop by drop the bucket fills up with skillful actions and overflows into something more deep, steady, reliable. Be a stable presence rather than search for it, ‘out there’ – gradually the chaos will begin to still. There’s a process there, and the result is purification.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2022-01-09 Careful Attention: Food for Awakening 41:52
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With careful attention we pick up those qualities within experience that are most supportive for liberation. It means we notice how things affect us and the results that follow. Mindfulness of body gives you something to rest in as you breathe through the rocky areas of heart and mind. Citta comes out of its restricted state and there’s a widening, stepping back, letting go.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2022-01-08 Stream of Liberation 51:47
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There is the nutriment for ignorance and the nutriment for true knowledge and liberation. Both are dependently arising on other factors. What arises, whether skillful or unskillful, is based on how one places attention, moderates attitudes, and relinquishes self-view. This is a transpersonal process – keep filtering experience in these transpersonal terms.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2022-01-07 Getting Out of the Concrete Jungle 44:15
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With mindfulness of breathing, subtle beneficial signs are picked up and suffused into the body. We can relinquish the signs we’ve picked up from the concrete jungle, the fear, the dread, the lack of heartfulness; we can purify the internal environment. Refer to what’s beautiful, uplifting, noble and generous. With mindfulness of breathing you’re taking in these messages.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2022-01-06 Gratification, Danger, Escape, Right View Regarding the Mind 37:39
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We all participate in this generated ‘me’ experience, which is of being ‘in here’ afflicted by the world ‘out there’. But we can come to understand this scenario as conditions with causes and effects. We can cultivate the basis for contentment, for love, tolerance, acceptance, gladness. There is a Path.
Cittaviveka :  2022 Winter Retreat Opening Group Practice
2021-12-31 The Network of Liberation 46:13
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Notice the web of conditions we all share, connections we take for granted – we are not separate from that, we are that weave. The decent human response is to cultivate virtue and goodwill, develop wisdom; such skillful causes and conditions purify the heart. This is the kamma that leads to the end of kamma. Connection to Dhamma via spiritual friendship leads out of suffering. It’s important to recognize such connectivity as a skillful quality, not a bondage.
Cittaviveka
2021-12-22 Guided Meditation - All Things Converge upon Feeling 49:28
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Establish mindfulness with the experience of a feeling body, the most fundamental source of feeling. Use a wide form of attention that covers the whole body. As phenomena are changing the mind is still with receptivity and deep listening. The nature of sati doesn’t react to feeling. The feeling can be felt, without blaming, criticizing or getting involved. When feeling isn’t given any more food, it becomes more equanimous.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-12-19 Enjoying Presence 40:53
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We become entangled in the creations and reactions that arise based on ignorance. Mindfulness immersed in the body is where we can experience release from the powerful reflexes and currents. Translate the complexities of thoughts into the simplicity of emotional drives, and feel them in the body. Tune into what’s given – awareness, presence, stability – this is comfortable, this is pleasure, this is our basic ground.
Cittaviveka
2021-12-12 Experience of Being Trapped 3:16
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This Covid experience can give the felt sense of being trapped, corralled in. There’s a background sense of fear and uncertainty. That’s why it’s so important to generate lovingkindness, groundedness, steadiness – soothing the community atmosphere, internally and externally.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-12 Q&A 46:27
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00:00 Working with people who have suffered trauma; 05:32 Helping someone into feeling the body or breath; 06:54 Relationships with others who are not spiritual; 09:06 Relationship between energy, intension and kamma; 17:57 The felt sense of being held; 20:36 Feelings of negativity when verbally attacked by family members; 23:24 Feeling sleepy; 25:29 Disorientation when trauma recedes; 28:55 The thinking mind; 32:02 When something is stuck; 34:27 Samādhi and concentration; 42:00 Is chanting helpful to the practice.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-12 Guided Meditation – Being Loved by Your Own Breathing 32:15
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Holding on doesn’t provide you with the deep security of being held. That deeper security comes from trusting that something can carry you and you don’t have to do it. That’s what breathing does. Mindfulness of breathing sustains the right mode of attention – steady, not seeking anything, listening intently with no particular result. Relax into that and get the sense of freedom and love.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-12 Signs and Signals 56:14
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The signs and signals in the sense world very often take us out of our core presence. So we cultivate carefully honed, carefully placed signs that calm and steady us, returning us to our core presence. From this place of stability and comfort we’re able to disengage from the unskillful and meet the difficult so it can be cleared.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-12 Advice on Walking 9:40
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Explore how the body moves in space when there are no boundaries, no time pressures, no destination. Feel the swing of the pelvis and shoulders, moving through your environment with fluidity. Focused on your intimate environment, you’re not grabbed by the sense world. You can deal with the external environment more wholesomely and comfortably.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
In collection: A Moving Balance
2021-12-12 Finding Your Own Pleasure 46:43
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Practice is actually quite simple. It involves translating the complexities of your personal circumstances into simple emotional patterns. Breathing picks up the dominant emotional signal and transfers it through the system. We want to manage that signaling system, to stop afflicting ourselves with harmful signals and heal ourselves with affirmative signals, ones that make the body feel whole and settled. At 29:45 a simple exercise to generate healing signals.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-11 Q&A 51:20
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00:12 Being at ease with suffering; 08:55 Time and space; 16:09 How to sit with constant pain; 20:23 Energy is blocked in the throat; 24:42 How to fully realize and penetrate suffering; 29:50 Hyper-tension; 36:44 Not taking things personally; 42:08 How to truly forgive; 44:31 Clearing ill-will; 46:10 Liberation through the deathless.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-11 Guided Meditation – Embodied Sense of Support 15:18
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Practice stepping back from the complexities and coming into the embodied sense of being supported; widen the focus to include ground and space. The problematic stuff is still problematic, but there’s a possibility to step back and inquire, "How’s that?" The heart that is balanced and free from pressure naturally experiences compassion, goodwill, equanimity.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-11 Feel What You Think 48:52
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To get a handle on what we feel, we need to get past layers of "self" and into the process that establishes it. When the "self" stuff falls away the original emotional trigger can be understood and released properly. An embodied spacious presence can do that. Let the body feel an emotion, breathe it – there can be softening and a releasing, and a transformation of your emotional profile.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-12-11 Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Profile and Standing Meditation 52:58
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Emotion is a part of our intelligence. But we can become overwhelmed by emotions, triggering reactive tendencies that create our emotional profile – and that becomes ‘me’/’myself’. It’s possible to moderate this reflexive system and manage the emotions. Begin with establishing a stable base in the body and coming into presence.
London Insight Meditation :  Feel It, Breathe It, Clear It - A Guide to Emotional Management
2021-11-26 Closing remarks – Refuge in this very body and mind 16:37
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This is a practice that bears great fruit. In the long run it makes you into a more wakeful, less tense person. Take some time to recollect it. Put aside what you don’t need and focus on what’s absolutely essential – presence and awareness. In this very body and mind you have the perfect system to practice, and to develop the boundless heart.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-26 Refuges and five precepts 6:19
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Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-26 Q&A 31:20
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00:13 Working with tinnitus; 03:06 ‘sensing a way home to what I am’; 04:42 Becoming more comfortable with non-doing; 06:57 Mention not-self/anattā in the suttas; 11:26 Focusing on one point with breathing; 14:45 Feeling I should be doing something; 16:12 Building more energy in the practice as one ages; 22:32 Feeling angst about ending of the retreat; 23:15 Recollecting one’s virtues as preparation for death; 25:01 Having lost our ability to express open steady presence; 26:13 Refusing to identify with someone or some movement; 27:10 Aches in my shoulder in long sits; 29:06 Arūpa jhānas.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-26 Guided meditation – Breathing regulates body and mind 45:12
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Aspects of energy can be steadied through sustaining awareness over the entire process of an exhalation, until the inhalation begins. Help breathing to regulate your energy. Energy will regulate your mind, quiet it, steady it, compose it, and over time it will consolidate into a steady quiet form.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-26 Bring your chaos home to be released 43:11
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The suttas can give us prompts for how to practice, but the agent is this embodied heart. It’s a process of calming and steadying shared between body and heart that reveals that stable constant presence beneath the activated energies. Withdrawing energy from the activations, just witnessing the changeability of phenomena, there is dispassion and releasing. Meeting energy, not feeding it, so it can be freed.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-26 Standing meditation - Unified energy 52:51
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Practicing in standing posture, it’s much easier to feel the whole body as an undivided object. Certain things then become apparent – an unbroken unity, an energy. Stay in your energy body as agitations well up, are received, and then dissolve – because they’re energy. This is the development of true insight, to know phenomena is changeable. Therefore one becomes dispassionate towards them.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-25 Chant - Suffusion with the divine abidings 6:56
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Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-25 Q&A 33:13
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00:12 Dispassion; 03:45 How do dispassion, disengagement and relinquishment reconcile with activism; 12:39 Body time versus clock time; 15:23 How should I teach mindfulness of breathing; 17:42 Joy and poignant sadness; 19:38 What is one then to be sensitive to in the third stage of the feeling tetrad; 25:55 Could you say that the citta is the deathless?
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-25 Q&A 23:17
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00: How to suffuse; 04:40 Placing and sensing the thinking mind; 07:14 Does Ānāpānasati help prepare us for end of civilization; 08:42 Nimittas; 10:01 When one area of body is not suffused; 11:25 How can we suffuse pīti/sukha? 13:00 Softening the process of enquiring; 15:26 Generating joy with chronic pain and vicious personal circumstances; 18:17 Blockages make nostril breathing difficult; 21:24 Can you speak about death?
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-25 Guided meditation - Gladdening the heart 38:37
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Tuning into where gladness is can be approached from different ways. One can recollect people or events that are gladdening, or one can tune into the energy of gladness that is felt in the body. Linger in its effects, the brightening, lifting quality that is agreeable.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-25 Jhāna 56:48
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Jhāna is a condition that supports getting out of the conditioned realm. It gives the mind enough stability to step out of time and enough happiness to step out of the pull of sense pleasure. It makes turning away, nibbida, possible leaving an experience of something open, measureless, where the heart feels freedom from stress, freedom from pressure.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-25 Time, craving and where they stop 51:03
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Your intimate environment is not about time, it’s about kamma. Enter into this embodied world with patience, resolution, goodwill and mindfulness, holding it steadily. There’s an aware intelligence that gets stronger and wiser when you can let go of the stories; it will work for your welfare.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-24 Q&A Saṇkhāra, self, khamma, khanda 39:39
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00:48 You said, ‘I’m not a person who worries a lot, but a worry that persons too much.’ Can you say more? 02:07 I’m not clear about the term ‘volition’; 31:32 Are the suttas prescriptive (something to do) or descriptive (something that will happen anyway); 34:03 How to calm the bodily formation; 36:30 How to contemplate impermanence, dispassion, cessation and letting go?
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-24 Guided meditation – The craft of meditation 29:04
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Settling into direct experience, finding a stable place within the constant tidal wave of phenomena arising. Disengaging, carefully attending. It’s a craft, feeling out how this form is best sustained, smoothed out, appreciated, lingered in. This is the craft of meditation.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-24 Q&A 34:29
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00:11 Feeling dizzy with QiGong; 00:49 Difference between calming mental activity and calming mind; 14:33 How to calm bodily activities with searing bodily pain; 16:29 Do we work sequentially on calming mental, then bodily formations, or together; 18:09 Examples of ‘accept not adopt’ particularly around past trauma; 21:04 Q6 When the hindrances calm down, what else is there to be found as citta saṇkhāra? 22:56 What does vicāra mean; 26:09 In-breath is short and painful when trying to elongate; 28:25 Should I try to smooth out bumpy breathing; 30:18 Meditative experience in terms of this social existence.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-24 Returning to body and heart 59:30
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We get conditioned to be insensitive to heart and body. To return, enter the body as an energy form, staying with it, thoroughly sensitive to the entire body. When you can feel the presence of your own embodied energy, the heart finds a refuge in that. There’s something here that stays present, grounded, firm, accepting.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-24 Body regulates heart 39:32
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You’re born into a system that knows how to regulate and discharge emotions and energy. If the energy is right, distractions and unevenness fade away, and the harmony of body and mind acts by itself. Practice asking what is needed now to bring ease, clarity and joy into your life. Use cultivation to do what’s needed, to maintain health, balance, sanity, lightness of being.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-23 Standing meditation – Harmony of the elements 21:54
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Guidance to sense into the felt body, experiencing its elemental qualities. When the elements do what they’re supposed to do, energy moves freely, harmoniously. Heart picks up the sign and feels happy, comfortable
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-23 Q&A 24:06
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00:14 Doubt around ability to meditate; 19:05 Going through the sixteen steps vs. just being aware of breathing; 20:27 Significance of the quality of effort.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-23 Guided meditation - Breathing whole body 16:43
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Establishing a firm foundation and upright posture, breathing in, breathing out. Let the exhalation drain the tired, stressed energy; let the inhalation refresh embodied energy. Put attention where it needs to go to facilitate breathing in and out through the whole body.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-23 Q&A 38:29
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00:35 How to work with painful memories; 08:33 Difference between pīti and sukha; 11:06 Style and benefits of your QiGong; 15:51 Awareness of bodily energies and sensations; 23:27 Feeling body from the inside vs. outside; 25:40 Which practices are precursors of satipaṭṭhāna practices; 27:43 How to shift from (uncomfortable) sensation to energy; 30:51 Reflective capacity of citta; 34:51 Mindfulness with pleasant but faint sensation; 36:57 Drowsiness with samādhi.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-23 Sutta + right view, attitude, mindfulness 62:42
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An overview of the Ānāpānasati Sutta, the first three tetrads having to do with samatha – steadying and opening the energies of body and – and the fourth having to do with vipassana – onlooking, contemplating what samatha brings to light. Right view, right attitude, right mindfulness are the guiding factors.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-22 Guided meditation - Receiving the gift 44:35
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Tuning in to ground, space and breathing, send messages of safety and comfort, stillness and ease to your internal environment. What your citta lingers on becomes the dominant theme. This is why it’s possible to experience happiness in this crazy world. Receive the gift of abiding in the simplicity of the given.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-22 Introduction – Steadying our internal environment 35:18
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Our intimate environment shakes us up; we become activated by phenomena and impressions. Through meditation we can begin to undo some of these reflexes, and cultivate a sense of stability and happiness. Then when things go wrong, our internal environment can be ok – it knows how to steady itself and discharge stress.
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
2021-11-22 Anapanasati Text References 0:00
(Recording not available) 
Bodhi College :  Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
Attached Files:
  • From Anapanasati Sutta (M118) by Ajahn Sucitto (PDF)
  • Mindfulness, Samadhi and Jhana by Ajahn Sucitto (PDF)
  • Wisdom , Insight and Release by Ajahn Sucitto (PDF)
2021-11-14 Whole system training 38:26
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Our practice and training take place in a field that includes the internal and external environments we’re living in. What we can’t do through our willpower we can receive through the different qualities in the environment. Connect it all, then everything will come into balance – there is an intelligence that we haven’t been aware of. You get so far with your own willpower and the rest comes from this source which is beyond that.
Aruna Ratanagiri Buddhist Monastery
2021-11-13 Anger, Grief, Afflictive Emotions 48:17
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Anger, grief and fear are primary reflexes that have the potential of taking us back to our safe, sympathetic intimate environment. To the extent that we have lost connection to the capacity of our autonomic nervous system to discharge stress, emotional energies freeze and don’t get resolved. This leave residues that sour and cripple the heart. So we practice cultivating our intimate environment; it's from here we can meet and transmute these afflictive emotions with pure presence.
New York Insight Meditation Center
2021-11-04 Noble Giving Means Giving Oneself 58:18
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The quality of dāna, giving, is not dependent on materiality or even a charitable obligation. It’s a Dhamma practice that makes you stronger than you thought you were – it brings up your nobility. It’s a privilege to give because it makes you glad, and so the enlightenment factors arise in the mind. For the one receiving, giving brings forth integrity – one wants to live up to the offering. This is the dāna principle; everybody wins. This dāna is a step on the Path to awakening.
Cittaviveka
2021-10-29 A fruitful merging 59:24
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Structures can be helpful, but they only get you so far and then you have to trust something more deeply felt – mindfulness internally and externally, conscience and concern. That’s the ultimate system. The qualities of this spiritual intelligence then blend into something affirmative and potent. We can begin to relax who we think we are, focus instead on these spiritual qualities that merge into the deathless, and allow the unbinding of that fixation of self.
Cittaviveka
2021-10-20 Guided meditation - Troughs, peaks and open stability 53:30
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In meditation, one might recognize troughs and peaks with regard to feeling. The idea is to smooth these out so we understand what touches us and how we react. Body and mind work together to create a stable, open presence so we don’t get swept away. Widening, opening, receiving activated energies but not the stories. This is the way you can level out the peaks and troughs.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-20 Returning to the source 41:08
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The protocols for cultivation of citta differ from those that operate in the sense world. Step back from the object and notice how it’s affecting you; notice how the subject is being affected. This leads to a purification in terms of engagement with phenomena, and draws away from clinging and passion. From this place of solidity and strength, turn back to the wisdom of your own heart and act from there.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-19 Signs, distorted or uplifting 38:14
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In cultivation we’re learning to experience things directly as they really are. We come to understand that we are moved and triggered by signs, not things. A lot of practice is about turning attention away from unskillful signs and cultivating skillful ones – cooperation, generosity, goodness. Then you’ve got something precious that takes you through difficult places and makes you feel comfortable when you’re in a bleak state.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-18 Triggers and leaks 40:11
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We are triggered by phenomena, and all kinds of turbulent emotions and reactions can result. But how does it all happen? We use wise attention to investigate the source, where things rise up from. A strong citta needs to be cultivated so you can review how stuff affects you. You have a choice in this: responsiveness or compulsiveness.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-17 Wisdom moves from stillness 36:17
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We usually associate change with lots of moving around, but deep change comes through stillness. It’s associated with pleasure – not sense pleasure but heart pleasure. It’s a shift to learn to pause and lift from the engagement. Citta’s qualities come through in this stillness and we can meet what arises with openness and goodwill.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-16 Independence from conditions 46:09
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How to meet the problematic nature of conditioned experience without becoming overwhelmed? From a steady heart and mind phenomena can be investigated. We learn what affects us, what is for our welfare and what to let go of. This is how we begin to become independent from conditions: we develop a different center.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-15 Right effort = responsibility with energy 38:56
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Energy is a constant fact of life. If you don’t apply it, it gets applied – there’s no neutral place. Be responsible. That’s what right effort means, constantly taking responsibility for where your energy goes. It’s an act of heedfulness and careful attention – choose what you want to abide in.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-14 Web of goodness 36:43
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We live in a human context with its mixture of bright and discordant energies. Our individual internal contexts are no different. We cultivate to potentize Dhamma factors for our own benefit and the benefit of the world. Grounding in wholesome qualities and steadiness of body, we find a raft in this very flooded swampy saṁsāra from which we can meet and review the flood of emotions and impulses.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Closing Group Practice
2021-10-09 Brahmaviharā Mantra Chant 2:13
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Mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā...
Chicago Theosophical Society :  Brahmavihara Workshop
2021-10-09 A vehicle for liberation 38:34
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We can reach into that which is bigger than our personal form, where we don’t feel the separation, we feel held by something that never leaves us – the boundless heart. We’re never totally closed, we just have scar tissue, and it can be brought back to life. This is the medium – lovingkindness, compassion, measureless, unrestricted. This is a vehicle for transformation and liberation from being identified from the world of circumstance.
Chicago Theosophical Society :  Brahmavihara Workshop
2021-10-09 Q&A 22:29
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(1:20) Returning to the unfettered after restriction; (6:22) romantic love; (8:50) holding in between breathing in and out; (13:31) feelings of restriction; (16:37) where emotions tend to arise in the body; (19:20) mind is easily distracted.
Chicago Theosophical Society :  Brahmavihara Workshop
2021-10-09 Let the heart express itself 23:14
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Love can come to be seen as a reward for good boys and girls. But it’s not a reward, and it’s not a social courtesy. It’s unfettered receptivity to the felt experience of being human. Gently removing barriers and setting aside distortions, stay steady with the natural trembling of being touched and let the heart express itself.
Chicago Theosophical Society :  Brahmavihara Workshop
2021-10-09 Guided Meditation: Heartfulness – a natural quality 20:59
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As you come into presence, feeling body and breathing, mind naturally wants to wander off. Return because there’s something enjoyable and essential to nourish yourself with. Open up to the capacity for enjoyment of the qualities and energies that begin to be felt. Enjoy the present moment as it is – a gift.
Chicago Theosophical Society :  Brahmavihara Workshop
2021-10-09 Natural flowing of goodwill 18:49
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The brahmaviharā are often referred to as sublime abiding places. This is the realm of heart, not a sensory realm but a spiritual one. The heart is often troubled in daily life. With the removal of obstacles and the sense of separation, the natural flowing of heartful qualities is restored. These are part of our nature, treasures of the gone forth person.
Chicago Theosophical Society :  Brahmavihara Workshop
2021-10-06 Gathering allies for liberation 52:03
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As we practice, there can be an urge to get out of this world. Rather than follow that instinct, find a way to move through the world in a way that’s harmonious. By being heedful, lifting attention, disengaging and seeing the world clearly, there is the possibility to act rather than get swept up. The 5 indriya are our allies, protecting the heart as we put the teachings into practice in our lives.
Cittaviveka
2021-08-31 Measureless heart 49:06
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The results of our actions – physical, mental and verbal – make the person. If we are generous or selfish, condemning or forgiving, the results wrap around the heart and shape the person. This is kamma – it’s not personal, it’s a law. Kamma isn’t locked, it can be turned. Turn towards the measureless states – abundant, exalted, free from ill-will.
Cittaviveka
2021-08-23 The Energy of Release 55:15
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Unless you find your stable ground, you’re not equipped to deal with your problems. The fundamental reaction to problems will be ill will – resentment, fear, blaming, guilt. Withdraw energy from the world of mind and come back into presence. There’s a sense of inner spaciousness, an energy of releasing, softening, letting go. It’s like a return. This is how we purify our own hearts.
Amaravati Monastery
2021-08-15 Entering the Sacred 38:43
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The quality of the sacred is missing from our lives, that which is totally true and is always there. We can open to it every day, from that stable place of embodiment. From that open center, we form a relational entity that can carry our values and virtues forward.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-15 Q&A 3 32:36
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Impact of other people; over-reliance on others; staying open with the unknown; responding to others’ sense of entitlement; innate truth of the cosmos; citta and the sense world; fear and constriction in the energy body.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-15 It’s the Wholeness that Does the Work 31:41
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Mostly we operate from a fragment, excluding the whole of experience because it doesn’t fit our model of what should be. Return to wholeness, first in your own heart and mind, then extending it to society. Maintain a wide focus and receptivity, an open state where citta remains attuned, and you’ll find your inner security, having plugged into the life force as it manifests in this body.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-14 Q&A 2 30:38
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Subject-object division of the senses; hardening in the face of trauma; greed, hatred and delusion; caring for others; broad vs. specific attention; harmonious relationships; experience of subjectivity; relationship of verbal formation (vacī saṇkhāra) to ānāpānasati.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-14 Kamma – Leaving Pain and Misery for a Divine Abiding 48:47
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There is such a thing as good and evil and they give rise to fortunate or unfortunate consequences. Good and evil not as value judgments, but as particular energies that have consequences. The heart opens as a consequence of skillful energies, like generosity and love. This is the key to the celestial domains of the Sacred Cosmos, where gods are void of judgment and keen on Dhamma as a way to happiness.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-14 Guided Meditation – Subtleties of Breathing 22:17
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Supporting the heart with embodiment, with steady ground and safe space, allow breathing to happen naturally. Releasing what’s not needed, the subtle shielding around the body, open to what’s around with goodwill and love. Whatever arises, breathing it in, breathing it out.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-14 Standing Meditation: Openness – the Sacred Quality 43:19
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Standing can help adjust you physically, anatomically and psychologically. Establish balance, connection, openness and ease. Let breathing flow through you. Aim for what’s harmonious in all that – open, allowing. This is the birthplace of wisdom and compassion.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-14 Q&A 1 31:43
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Separation and interconnectedness; citta doesn’t fit in this world; destruction of the environment; fear of letting go; energy of body vs. sensations; healing divisiveness in my community.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-14 The Search for Safe Ground 54:18
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There are many kinds of world – biological, political, and so on. Their common source of discord is selfishness, the separatist, supremacist view. The common intention of all worlds is the search for safe ground. We might start with a safe human environment, then establish safe embodiment. When there is safety, security and truthfulness, by itself citta opens and brings forth its own qualities – love, wisdom and morality. These are our unique offerings to heal the discord in any world.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-13 Guided Meditation – Liberating the Body 49:33
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This body that we can see as an object it’s also a subject – it’s a feeling, intelligent creature. Start with this right attitude, right view, and open the mind from the assumptions about body as an object to treating it as a sensitive creature. As we liberate this creature from clinging and identity, the witnessing heart – awareness – becomes more steady and peaceful.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-13 The Myth of the Individual 47:01
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We see ourselves as separate from the rest of the world, but we’re not. We are a meeting point of all kinds of relational qualities, qualities that can be imbued with Dhamma to make our experience a mandala of sharing and communion. Stress comes from developing an ineffectual relationship with what happens. We practice to come out of the worldly dividedness into something more compassionate, deep, less isolated. This is sacred practice.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies :  The Sacred Cosmos
2021-08-10 Q&A 24:57
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00:15 I find it difficult to access body and heart intelligence through sitting and breathing; 04:26 Is there a chant or practice we can do before or while eating?; 06:23 Sometimes the citta feels vast and spacious and other times intimate; 09:12 What is paritta chanting; 11:50 I suffer from tinnitus. How can I incorporate this into my meditation?; 14:18 Do you have long retreats, like 3 months?; 15:09 I experience reluctance to doing a daily formal sit even though I know it’s good for me; 17:33 What is right effort when it comes to strong sustained energy that is released during meditation?; 19:45 What is the background to the stained glass windows that Ajahn Sucitto helped design at the Sunyata Center?
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-10 Opening the mind door 41:07
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We can’t always feel good but we can get enough stability to stop running, and instead meet what’s unpleasant. Meditation is the opportunity to safely become insecure – set aside the defenses and strategies, remain present and stable, and open. When you’ve accepted its presence with mindfulness, fear no longer propels the citta because it’s been integrated.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-10 No obligation 40:25
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Time boundaries, pressure and obligation, create a frame within which the citta becomes compressed. We become a driven or burdened person. What is lacking is internal stability and openness. Stand back from all that and bring a gesture of goodwill to the constricted places. You then have your stable open presence to offer.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-09 Guided Meditation – Breathing 52:29
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The aim of mindfulness of breathing is to steady, refresh and bless the mind. When the heart becomes clean and happy, it naturally widens and sends out good energies and actions into the world. So when you cultivate through heart, you benefit both your own mind and the lives of others.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-09 Q&A 46:38
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O1:06 Q1 How should one prepare the body and mind for sleep. 07:27 Q2 Could you explain again what is meant by the axis and the heart line. 20:44 Q3 If I go to crowded places, when I get home I feel sad and sometimes even suicidal from all negative energies. How can one protect oneself from this? 24:47 Q4 How can we get beyond the habits of the mind? 27:29 Q5 I think you said that “known” is a feeling. I am confused. 33:08 Q6 Most jobs have to do with the exploitation of the environment in some way and even healing professions are contaminated with the exchange of money. Can you offer some comments? 41:01 Q7 I have a chance to get a new job. I feel excitement but also see I will have less time to meditate and care for my elderly Mum. 43:49 Q8 My son has cut himself and my grandchildren off from me and I feel my heart has turned to stone.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-09 Walking through your identity 8:27
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In walking meditation, move through the identifiable world. Feel its resonances and triggerings and keep walking, see them as changing flickering phenomena. Maintain a steadiness as you walk through your world – it’s not actually yours, it’s always going its own way.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
In collection: A Moving Balance
2021-08-09 No person, no problem 33:11
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Citta’s tendency is to grasp onto phenomena, seeking stability in the ever-changing nature of things. Citta can also respond to phenomena with mindfulness — an open attention that allows things to do what they do and move through. When the constant seeking abates, a pleasant abiding place remains. This is where true stability is found.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-09 Guided Meditation - Samadhi is harmony 29:47
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When we establish steadiness of body, citta returns to being embodied because that’s its home base. With steadiness and comfort, pressure is released in both body and heart. Cultivate like this and the self-referencing can disappear; then there’s just witnessing. When body and heart are held together in harmony – this is samādhi.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-09 Well-being is the shape of heart 43:03
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The heart takes shape based on certain activations. We can train to avoid certain intentions and actions that make for either a shaky insecure heartone or one stuck with pain. A wise person concerned for their welfare cultivates a citta that is open, spacious, not hankering, not resisting. We begin to reset how our world feels and how we feel about ourselves. This is our treasure.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Guided Meditation - Awareness spread over the body-mind field 47:45
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Many things arise in the field of awareness. It’s all energies moving – some bodily, some emotional, some conceptual. Spread awareness over all of it equally, without grasping or repelling. Every detail is to be included into the whole, like a mosaic. There’s no person separate from this, there’s just this and awareness of it. May it be well.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Standing Meditation – Whole Body Vitality 26:56
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Begin with a bit of movement and loosening so energy can flow freely. Once movement stops, sense into subtler aspects of bodily experience – where is there stability, space, connection. A lightness, even playfulness, is encouraged in meditation. Enjoy.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Q&A 49:41
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Q1 – A comment about personal experience of alignment – lateral and vertical and Ajahn’s response; Q2 18:32 Can you provide more guidance on the use of space. Q3 21:15 I am dealing with a very volatile situation with severe conflict and stress. How can I deal with it mid-way between expressing my emotions and suppressing them? Q4 28:24 When I feel my body and heart are stable is that a good moment to bring up a problem of concern for me? Q5 28:59 Someone has been asking for my help, rather too much and too often and I find the pressure difficult. How can I handle this?Q6 31:33 You mentioned meditating with eyes open but not seeing. This is challenging for me. How does that happen? Q7 35:02 I feel a band of tightness at the back of the head and behind the ears. What might I do? Q8 38:12 In my family we have a history of Alzheimer’s. Do you think heart wisdom is noble when dementia is present? How might practice be a support in the face of any decline of cognitive functioning? Q9 40:49 They say one in four women and men in Ireland have experienced some form of childhood sexual abuse. How might people practise with this in their background?
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Using embodied intelligence 7:46
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Practice with sustaining open space for phenomena to arise and move within. Sensitive to what’s going on, but not contracting around it, body remains spacious and open. It’s possible to experience sense contact without intrusion, remaining internally clear, free from congestion.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Embodied intelligence 25:17
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We are familiar with conceptual intelligence, but body and heart intelligence need to be trained. These do not interpret or think about phenomena, but experience it directly – feeling, sensing, responding. Exploring things as phenomenal rather than as myself, there’s no need to understand them; instead let them pass with dispassionate, open stability.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Balance internal and external 2:56
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Use the experience of deepening attention in your practice, to really see what’s around you. You can practice mindfulness when you move around off the cushion. Often we live in the cocoon of an assumed environment that is not really what’s there. Take a fresh look. Pay attention.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability

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