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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
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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2021-08-08 Open into the given 27:58
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Mindfulness is the heart's awareness. It can help us be embodied,present, and show up for life. The embodied sense is warm, cohesive and is sustained through the rhythmic flow of breathing. The sense of ‘I am’ sits in the center of that embodied sensitivity. This sense is a given and cannot be created; but mostly its ignored because we're too busy ‘doing’ to receive it.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-08 Little me and the sabotage 48:21
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We live at the meeting point of perceptions and impressions with their reactions and cannot stop suffering until we see beyond that domain. Stability and the awareness of the ever-changing nature of experience are both essential. From this perspective we see how the pressure to be harmonious with others captures the heart. This is a form of sabotage; it creates inner conflict, and a person – little me – who is never happy. When there is conflict, it’s important to find common ground with others, prior to negotiating the details.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-07 Love is not a reward 49:34
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When we give the citta our attention, there is a possibility for it to offer its four treasures - kindness, compassion, appreciative gladness, equanimity. These treasures are a virtual immune system, protecting one from the hostilities in the world. They free us from seeking adoration from others as well as comparing ourselves to and competing with others. Whereas a narrow form of love is used as a social training and diminishes healthy acceptance and self view, authentic love is a natural and shared medium for mutuality-based life.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-07 Q&A 47:26
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Q1- How to deal with strong floods of sankhāra, in dealing with my role and identity as a Mother. Q2 – Are the qualities of the heart conditioned in the same way as intellectual abilities or physical strength. Q3 – I have a 17 year old dying cat. She suffers a lot and rejects the comforting medicine of the vet. Is this cat wisdom? Q4 What would be a sequence for a daily meditation practice? Q5 Are dharma and dhamma the same? Q6 Can we use the 5 indriyas to solve the 5 hindrances? Q7 How to deal with a band of pain around the back. Q8 Healthy attachment is important for example in childhood development. How do we know if it is OK to have an attachment or not.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-07 Guided Meditation - Standing 2 23:23
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In some ways we don’t do very much in standing meditation. We use the body to adjust the body energy rather than the mind with the heart gently enquiring: “How is this now?” With the whole body in focus we can experience the body’s natural intelligence.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-07 Balancing indriya (36:59) 36:56
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The search for stability and happiness is a reasonable one, it’s just generally pointed in the wrong direction. We overlook our own center as the source for non-suffering. Proper cultivation of the 5 indriya culminate in such a state. Their potency is not so much in each individual quality, but in how they blend – both balancing and enriching each other.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-07 Meditation heart, body and mind co-operating 28:00
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The qualities of heart, body and intellect can come together in mutual support. Upright steady body; comfortable heart that’s not straining; mind listening, acting as a coach. This is entering into proper relationship – you can get great strength from just this.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 Reflection on goodwill 11:18
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Acknowledge the capacity and willingness we have as humans for goodwill – and the horrific capacity we have for ill will. We use our practice to turn our attention towards goodwill and to exercise our ability to notice and generate heart energies. Metta allows us to put aside harmful energies and thoughts and to be grateful for the expanded state of mind that it brings. Equanimity means staying emotionally present regardless of our reaction to experience. We avoid perfectionist tendencies and ideas about what we should or should not do and maintain a generous heart.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 Guided standing meditation 45:13
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Notice that the body knows how to stand, how to balance, by itself - with no mental effort. Enjoy your feet as the chief of the management team and spread your attention to other members of the team.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 Chanting - Divine Abidings 10:00
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Ajahn reviews the physical and conceptual approach to chanting and leads (at 06:27) the Divine Abidings Chant
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 Q& A On effort and relaxation 34:48
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00:41 Q1 I have trouble relaxing with my meditation. Samadhi seems more available when I sit on the couch with a cup of tea. What can you suggest? 16:47 Q2 Receiving or attuning to what is given can be tricky due to our family and social conditioning. How do we deal with this conditioning? 24:15 Q3 When I sit or walk my body sucks in the air and holds it for maybe 5 seconds. Should I just observe this or is my practice misguided?
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 Moving out of meditation 6:22
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A practice of lingering and noticing what has passed has an open and steadying effect. This is an aspect of mindfulness: to not rush onto the next thing but notice what’s there. This is where samadhi arises. Give yourself a set period of time while meditating, then make the movement out of meditation free and aimless.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 Meditation on the axis 5:22
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Some brief suggestions on working on posture to sharpen one’s sitting meditation.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-06 The guardians of open stability 48:57
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The basis of citta (heart-awareness) can be touched by using the thought “it’s like this now”. We can rely on the 5 indriyas to be as allies and guardians; they protect us from reactivity and from running away from our authentic heart.
Sunyata Buddhist Centre :  Open Stability
2021-08-03 Field of Blessings 42:15
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Based on who we associate with and surround ourselves with, a field is generated where we pick up the behaviors and tonalities. One trains to generate a supportive field for training and learning. Whatever the field, open to what you’re in, get a feel for that, and aim for what is honorable, steady and balanced.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-08-02 Moving through the World 42:48
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How we meet and move through our world determines our experience of it. If we can shift our volition, the world changes. Contemplate the proper intention for whatever you’re a part of – best thing to stop suffering is to be in harmony with it. Breathing in, breathing out, setting aside any hint of ill-will, open to your world with the gentle quality of suffusing goodwill.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-08-01 Easing into Wholeness 45:02
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We use the forms of everyday life to notice what the mind makes out of them, the accumulations that occur. The theme is stay with the whole, stay connected, let the details go. What’s behind the inclination to move out? The stable reassuring quality of attention over the whole form – without ill-will, closing down, or dismissal – results in the freedom and happiness we seek.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-07-31 Skilful Signs Skilful Absorption 39:07
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By its nature, mind is absorptive. In skilful cultivation we steer that towards internal qualities of contentment, unity, release. This is how we are gladdened – the nervous system steadies and cools, body gets happy, mind composes itself, then you begin to see things clearly – what’s causing the distortions, stress and struggle, and you stop doing it, stop throwing your heart away to your obsessions. Settle into the goodness, drink it in. Wisdom arises from here.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-07-30 A Breath of Kindness to the Kammic Field 41:40
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Kamma is a feedback loop of actions and results, out of which comes the experience of ‘me’. We use meditation to step out of the scenarios, recognize the process and change the patterns. Once you see it, you get the meaning – ‘a suffering being’– and the response is sympathy. Use the energy of breathing to calm and clear afflictive states, replacing them with healing.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-07-29 Upright Mind, Upright Body 46:18
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Bring attention to where body and mind come together in the upright. Upright is not just anatomical, but energetic – where you feel balanced, poised, wakeful. Relax the stress in body and mind with the calming effects of breathing. As mental and bodily energies gather and steady around the center, citta can rest here, and begin to experience its collectedness.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-07-28 Forgiveness and Gratitude 40:39
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Suffering tends to isolate us into a small tight heap forming around a particular topic. In this narrow field we lose access to gladness, self-acceptance, and forgiveness. Breathing through the agitating energies, feel them as just that – it’s not personal, we can rise above. Willing to touch what’s difficult with gladness, we can meet the failing world without getting upset.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-07-24 Asalha Puja – The Middle Way of Practice 50:45
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The Buddha teaches the middle way between the extremes. This quality of balance extends from right view, the recognition that actions extend beyond oneself – into the world around, to other people; it sets up what develops next for oneself. It matters which way the mind dips. Stay upright in that center that deepens into samādhi and wisdom, extending goodwill and clarity across whatever we contact and touch.
Cittaviveka :  Cittaviveka 2021 Rains Retreat - Opening Group Practice
2021-07-22 Guided Meditation - Right View Supports Right Mindfulness 50:40
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When mindfulness is based on right view, there is understanding of skillful and unskillful mind-states and the effects they give rise to. Otherwise mindfulness is merely attention. Right mindfulness, established firmly in the body, has the quality of steadiness and stillness, witnessing and non-involvement with phenomena. Mindfulness is about returning to body and breathing – ground, space, center.
Cittaviveka
2021-07-15 Closing Remarks 12:14
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Parting words and expressions of gratitude from the teachers. “These are opportunities in this human realm to experience letting go, gratitude, compassion, gladness, equanimity.”
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Day 6 Q&A 55:20
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Balance between discipline and self-love; failure as a shadow side of practice; addiction to Dhamma talks/books; skillful way to deal with anger; benefits of regulating breath.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Guided Meditation – Brahmaviharā 20:01
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Use of images and recollections to deeply experience the qualities of the brahmaviharā. Keep attention wide, body relaxed, attuned to how things are felt – shifting, moving, and affecting the body. And is it possible to turn any feature of these intentions towards yourself?
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Harvesting the field of Dhamma 61:10
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The way to make use of the closure of retreat is to harvest. Standing at the door of the mind, use the body for support to review the stuff of the mind from a balanced place. The upright axis cools the field of reactivity. Witnessing with disengagement, don’t be deceived by what appears internal and external, it’s all happening in the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Guided Meditation – Graduated Expansion 8:12
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Guidance to gradually return to awareness through the sense fields. No pushing, just expanding lightly, integrating the inner domain with your external circumstance in whatever you do next.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Puja – A Daily Door to the Sacred 16:32
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The occasion of puja provides a useful link between our inner realities and outer circumstances. As we chant and make offerings, we’re open and receptive to the virtue, values, insights of our depth experience. The body picks up these signs as deep tissue memories, making these qualities available to enrich what we do in the external world.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation – Fine Tuning the Postures 5:46
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Advice for specific sāti helpful in each posture. Establishing ground, steadiness and center while keeping awareness wide, allow dhammas to swim by, letting them all go. A certain strengthening effect comes from that.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Day 5 Q&A 52:15
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Difference between wise caution and anxious reaction; use of psychiatric medicines; please condense teachings and instructions for practice; cultivating relationship with gods/celestial beings; commitment to waking up entangled with wanting and striving; transitions in place, experience and practice.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 The Gift of Realization 56:06
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Realization isn’t something you do, it’s something that arises from beyond yourself. When we stop reacting to the stirrings of our kammic field, stop creating a self, awareness can lift and witness – this is suffering, this is its origin, this is how it ceases. As we begin to wear out these distorted psychologies that make up the self, qualities of happiness, freedom, joy and love become available as a gift.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Puja – Being Buddha 40:03
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The nature of puja is it’s a direct participation in Dhamma. Setting aside what is not needed, boundaries of self and circumstance dissolve and there’s just the upright center, receptive. Surveying the field of kamma from this awakened position gives you a direction, a vantage point from which to navigate your day and your meditation.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Day 5 Q&A 41:05
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Accepting my own aging; emptiness; is taking a stance alignment rather than saṇkhāra; how to deal with conflict mindfully; can our practice become self-centered; how to maintain this in daily life; how to repay kamma/transfer merit for accidentally killing animals; struggling to wake up and meditate; how to work with desire for solitude and concern over isolation/loneliness; how to relate to mother who has long term issue of complaining.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation – It’s Like This Now 18:10
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Practicing in the upright body, surveying the field, whatever is happening for you, wherever you are, however you are – it’s like this now. Without reacting, denying, fighting or fudging, staying with experience but not in it. That’s the still point. Through that power of this truth, the tide of kamma begins to settle and clarify, and wisdom begins to arise.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Day 4 Q&A 54:09
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Maintaining mindfulness on sleeping and waking up; relationship between being sensitive and taking things personally; human enhancement and right view; sense is of being a frightened deer – practices for inner sense of security; gathering the good for wandering mindstates.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Replenishment 65:06
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Citta can become established on our own or others’ foolish actions, then suffers from depletion, withdrawal of empathy. It doesn’t know how to drink in its own goodness. Use breathing to shift these deep-seated negative formations, suffusing the body with the qualities of the brahmaviharā. Put aside the doing and receive these natural resonances as a source of nourishment and replenishment.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Puja – Surveying the Field of Kamma 39:52
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Puja offers the opportunity to survey the field of your mind, your kammic field. Survey it with the eye of a Buddha, with compassion and awareness, not self, just qualities moving around. Remain on the edge, keep your intentions light – sensing, steadying – and let things reveal themselves more fully.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Day 4 Q&A 45:24
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How can I love myself; how to deal with loneliness; questions that arise while sitting; gratitude and rejoicing; preventing negative energy coming towards us; in-breath gets stuck at solar plexus; using breathing meditation in standing posture; working with the effects of harmful childhood events; energy can be helpful but isn’t a meditation technique; worry about other people.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Guided Meditation – Open Stability 15:00
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A practice with opening the sense fields while remaining with the upright. Remain in receptive mode – there is the seeing, the seen, the one who sees – not moving out into any of these, staying with undivided wholeness.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Day 3 Q&A 58:30
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
How to respond to the energy of craving (taṇhā); how to navigate states of calm; advice for approaching cancer without fighting/setting up a war; how to work with thinking, between suppressing in meditation and reacting while living in the world; encountering doubt after 20 years of practice; how to work with unhappiness/sadness.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Guided Meditation – Breathing into Empathic Life 19:53
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Guidance to sense experience at the cellular level, not as a person. Establish the firm welcome of ground and safe benevolent space around. Sensing, with every inhalation is a birth, with every exhalation a complete emptying back into ground. Tuning into the subtle bodily and mental feelings, may this be well.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Right View of the Domain of Practice 54:47
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How we live on the surface – our lifestyle, speech, actions – generates signs and messages received in the depth. Make an effort to establish right view in your daily life. Mindfulness is then established from that message, not in self-view but in the right territory of lovingkindness, compassion, renunciation.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Refuge Place 15:01
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From the depth of the heart is a place of refuge. A place you can go with failures, pains, mistakes – and be accepted. A place to put it all down, finish it. Let go of the tangles and snagging that happen at the surface.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 The Treasure of Right Speech 15:25
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Speech today tends to be surface babble, it doesn’t go to the depths. One who knows the depths speaks things that are valuable, useful, conducive to harmony. Therefore one looks at speech as a potential treasure, something that can demonstrate love, show that other people matter to me.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Day 3 Q&A 54:51
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Other people’s suffering; what is meant by ‘non-self’; remaining with love when one feels constricted and out of control; cause of excessive burping; please talk about the perception-feeling saṇkhāra processes; the purpose of sensing space around; body scanning to train the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Day 2 Q&A 52:04
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Questions have been grouped by theme: Breathing; how do we work with the regret; questions around citta; how does piti (rapture) manifest in the body; heart feels like a lump of black coal.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Returning to Surface 15:11
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Whatever arises from the depth, it’s not yourself. It’s citta territory – nothing to fight with, claim or stir yourself up with. Stay with the center, the quality of uprightness and the ground from which it arises.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Wholeness and Fragmentation 59:39
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Upright is both a physical and psychological feature. We can feel the balance, and if attention is sustained there, afflictive energies pass through –confusion transmutes into sanity. Because of ignorance we lose touch with wholeness, energy scatters and spills out through the khandas. Return to the wholeness, extend love and gentleness. Linger in skillful perceptions and the heart will reform itself in line with those meanings.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Puja – Coming into Uprightness 46:45
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The upright is both an anatomical and psychological reference. It’s from the upright that we deepen, moving through difficult territories without getting hooked, arriving at places of authenticity and clarity. Puja offers an occasion for opening and deepening.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Day 1 Q&A – Common Problems 53:19
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
How to deal with bodily pain; what to do when mind is obsessively thinking; mind goes dull and I keep falling asleep; what to do with weird energies that can happen; I can’t seem to do breath meditation.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Guided Meditation - Deepen and Breathe 34:23
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Begins with standing posture, aligning the posture so muscles can relax deeply. Flows into sitting posture without breaking the deepening process. Energies from the depth rise up and concoct scenarios that carry the flavor of what’s unresolved – passion, despair, worry. Breathe through it, cooling and steadying the energy in your body.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Love, Breathing and Life – an Outline 49:10
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An introduction to the theme of the retreat that redefines traditional meanings of love, breathing and life. Breathing provides the foundation from which we can open to circumstance without fighting, without grabbing. And isn’t this what love is? Just staying with the restrictions, not asking for anything, just flowing through. This is what it means to live a meaningful life – to meet and show up for this experience.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 How to Use the Body 54:02
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Instructions for establishing an upright, open posture where you can relax and let breathing happen. The body recognizes that. When the body is relaxed and peaceful, mind sees things clearly. Introduction to chanting as a means for expressing our faith and aspirations. This is how to set up a meditation temple in your own body.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-06-26 Q&A 43:16
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Cultivating mental/emotional equilibrium – drowsiness, other people. Energies – how to sense subtle body, body sways in meditation, standing meditation, qigong, kundalini. Do we need goals in life; fear and anxiety; physical pain devoid of mental pain; advice about becoming a nun.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-26 Guided Meditation – Acknowledging Dukkha 14:41
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When we try to settle, what we might notice is unsettledness. Rather than go into the topic, recognize the energy. Give attention to places in the body that are non-agitated. Use body and breathing to change the speed of the mind, steady it. Once settled, then dilemmas and unfinished business can be related to with dispassion, compassion, detachment.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-24 Innate Nobility 55:15
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The world that consciousness presents us as existing within is divided into self and other; this is a source of suffering. Authentic relatedness is needed to realize that there is no fundamental self or other. So we need to establish a relationship with the uncertainty of this that’s harmonious. Stop the topic, experience the energy. If we meet suffering not in terms of me and you, but with awareness of agitated energies, then lovingkindness, compassion and patience naturally arise. The tangle of fear and insecurity that imprisons us dissolves. The citta returns to its innate nobility.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-23 Guided Meditation – Staying Present with Experience 52:30
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There are 2 qualities of citta: it is affected and it is knowing, aware. With cultivation, awareness can become much more apparent and encompassing while the affective sense can steady, calm and subside into something still. The process is to go through the body. As the body eases, citta settles and collects into itself – samādhi. Happy, easeful, refreshed.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-19 Breathing Intelligence 37:26
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Cultivation of citta is the highest kind of learning we can undertake. The breathing body is our means for learning, for directly experiencing our kammic configurations. It provides a basis so when difficult states arise, citta can remain open and stable, and move through them.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-19 Guided Meditation – Emotional and Bodily Bases 16:49
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The Buddha said that amongst all the bodies, best is the breathing body. Most important is to give emotional support to let the breathing do the work – allowing, wishing, encouraging. This a useful foundation for contemplating the various currents, energies, obsessions that citta has to release.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-17 Restraining the Outflows 58:11
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All the world rests on very simple human emotions – fear, anxiety, loneliness, gratification. We run out because of them, or build walls to protect ourselves from them. Practice with restraint, keep coming back to here, now, knowing, it’s like this. Don’t run out, just return, and the outflows fade on their own.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-13 Stop Running and Your Real Home Appears 56:31
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The tendency to keep running out into concepts eventually results in overload, insecurity, anxiety, collapse. We’re desperately looking for sanity. The steadiness and fulfillment we seek is already here, in the non-conceptual intelligence of body and heart. Rather than going out, return to where body, mind and heart energy come together. In this presence our real home appears.
Cittaviveka
2021-06-13 Sensitivity and Restraint 31:52
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One of the most fundamental requirements in meditation is restraining the mind. Rather than running out, energy can settle and calm. Then one’s effort is neither straining towards some goal, nor enmeshed in agitation. There’s space for sensitivity, receptivity, listening. When the outflows are restrained goodwill, compassion, clarity and wisdom come forth on their own.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-13 Guided Meditation - Bodily Ease 14:51
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Use the three intelligences of heart, mind and body to create a sense of calm and happiness. Body helps restrain mind; heart generates an atmosphere of gentleness and goodwill. Know what’s worth giving attention to for liberation.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-06 Not Quite So: Co-Dependent Arising 28:49
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Our apparent reality arises from moods and interpretations that generate the world of time and space, self and other. It’s possible to meet the moods and mental states directly without creating stories or identities until the signs dissolve and only clarity remains. Meditation and engagement are skillful means to understand the dependent arising of our world, of suffering, and of skillful dhammas.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-06 Guided Meditation – Establish Puja as Your Abiding Place 14:40
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We can use the occasion of puja to cultivate signs of purity, beauty, liberation. You’ll feel it changes the rhythm of the mind – heart opens, thinking mind slows down and bodily presence wakes up. Anxieties and agitations are held in this open presence, felt in the body, and allowed to pass and dissolve.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-06-04 Inching into Uncertainty - Closing Talk and Chanting 28:02
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A reflection on how this online retreat came together: good people combining their skills towards a wholesome intention. Whatever we embark on has an element of uncertainty and possibility of failure, but the heart doesn’t fail. Stay open, do your practice, and meet the challenges that arise. Best to form a group – it becomes difficult when you feel you’ve got to do it on your own.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Day 6 Q&A2 – The Sacred, Body, Self and Other 47:37
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Trying to find triggers and safe space in the midst of health issues that affect nervous system, heart rate and breathing; stiff neck and shoulder muscles keep re-contracting; how to respond to getting so tired; what is the wise and caring response to body; navigating touch and contact skillfully; how can we be heirs to our kamma if there is no self to inherit it; through investigation of qualities of citta clarity and falling away has occurred – how to sustain; the more I see things clearly the more I feel the weight of delusion causing sadness and disgust and feeling of pointlessness for practice; how to approach in and out breath to calm mental activity (citta)/please speak to mindfulness of feeling from the Ānāpānasati Sutta.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 No Beginnings, No Endings, Just Practice 3:03
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On this last day of retreat, mind might be occupied with comings and goings and what’s next. Remember the stabilizing practices that give citta the strength and encouragement to open despite the bewildering nature of things. Don’t be moved by the change of circumstance, every moment is precious.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Open Path 46:53
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An encouragement to continue finding the time and occasion to establish presence to be with all that arises. It’s not about getting through the maze of dukkha but gaining the skills and balance that lift you out. It’s the path of the sappurisa, the person of integrity who attunes to practice with all it requires – faith, open center, with the first movement being goodwill.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Puja – Regaining Heart, Regaining Life 42:49
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We throw ourselves away into identities, sources of stress, comparison, separation. Puja is an occasion for returning to citta’s true home – the sacred that includes it all. Make note of what takes you out and what brings you back home – faith, values – and keep them close by.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Day 6 Q&A1 34:29
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Is citta able to verbalize/understand words; citta’s role in nightmares; differences between hindrances and fetters; is cultivating bhavana or khanti better for burning off defilements; a lot of pain in the body caused movement in meditation disrupting energy; cultivating mētta; alternative healing methods; startled out of the body when bell rings; locating ancestral exclusions in the body; understanding workings of mind from Abhidhamma perspective vs. contemplation of 4 foundations of mindfulness for realizing non-self; accessing solar plexus during meditation; finding firmness when touching into open spaciousness; musician is torn between music and meditation.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Guided Meditation - Quietly Witnessing the Kammic Field 5:30
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As you review what’s arising and passing for you, establish balance and continue with non-engagement. It’s just the human citta doing what it does. Awareness, firm and focused, lingering – in that you’ll find a quiet happiness.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Day 5 Q&A2 54:25
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Working at our levels but there’s nothing to attain/is citta is inherently pure; how to think about kamma after death; how does being enveloped in compassion feel; after moving energy down into belly deciding to move from samatha to vipassanā; the knower merges with the known and there’s no object left; when beginning to become concentrated I get hijacked into numbness/feeling lost in brahmaviharā; relationship between awareness, citta, mindfulness and the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Kamma, Signs and Signlessness 56:49
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We can become flooded by signs that carry meaning according to our kammic histories. To move out of the floods of thought, self, other people, let the sign be a reminder. Go to the body, the felt sense, to the place where the personal qualities are subdued and there’s just the qualities of goodwill and patience. Energies shift and release. This is how we clean out embedded kamma.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Puja – Images of the Sacred 23:11
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The signs in daily life can be sterile, abrasive, rapid – designed for effective organization, not for organic life. Puja is an occasion to shift gears and cultivate signs of simple beauty, warmth, inclusivity. It’s helpful to have an atmospheric dip every day into signs that cause citta to feel like home.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Day 5 Q&A1 51:17
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Bright pure light which comes up in meditation; dealing with trauma from a kammic standpoint; how to practice with back pain and lack of sleep; if there’s no self who puts forth effort into the 4 right efforts; offering of invitation was not received leaving sourness; when feeling arises from words do I just stay with the feeling or inquire about it; a lot of pain in body and sudden urge to cry; mind first allows phenomena to subside and investigates later; transitioning back into kammic realm from a place of presence is challenging too easily losing mindfulness; difference between citta and manas; compulsive tendency around cleanliness; struggle with breath meditation feeling like I’m controlling it.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A2 50:15
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Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Healing, Forgiveness and Blessing 17:17
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It’s very important to share the heart, share the blessings with all that arises. One should do this regularly. Let go of the image, let go of the person – don’t dismiss it, relate to it, witnessing with sympathy, extending the heart. Lingering in the steady open presence, get familiar with it, feeling it, resting in it.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Dependent Arising 5:06
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Mindstates, feelings, perceptions are moving, shifting – there’s no single coherent entity in that, yet there’s awareness of that. Maintaining simple open presence, bring your body into harmony, bring your heart into harmony, and the view becomes clear: this is dependent arising.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A2 50:15
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Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Chanting – Puja and Divine Abidings (English) 9:37
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 The Power of Love 41:31
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The power of lovingkindness is it can nourish and fortify the heart so doesn’t get crushed by the floods. This gives us a platform for life where all phenomena, even the most painful and difficult, can be witnessed and held. It’s just kammic forces playing themselves out – don’t get stuck in that.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Puja – Heart Consciousness 38:41
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Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A1 49:13
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How to relate to afflictive states; thoughts of unwholesome acts arise in meditation; how can I feel safety in my brown body when there is external racism; is the movement of citta saṇkhāra the same as cetana; feels like body grows bigger while meditating; body cells are asking for more oxygen; how to direct energy to peripheral parts of body; remaining with awareness mind while noticing absence of ‘I’; self-consciousness, fear making a mistake and being judged; affected by family’s trauma like citta is haunted.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Suffusion with the Divine Abidings Chanting (English) 9:37
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Guided Meditation – Be the Seer 8:42
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Keeping the focus of eye consciousness still and soft, aware of the one who sees. This seer doesn’t speak, it just sees. Notice when mind consciousness begins chattering – nothing to talk about, there’s just the seer.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Puja - Heart Consciousness 38:41
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Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Guided Meditation - Breath Energy 42:57
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Goodwill 38:04
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The practice of recollecting and extending goodwill establishes stability of heart. Bring to mind your allies, warming the heart in response to the inferred hostility it experiences. Repel the ill-will knowing there is something beautiful here to be protected.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Extending Heart 14:07
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Practice with the gradual extension of the heart. Extend it in terms of goodwill. Include difficult places without withdrawal of warmth, regard or empathy. Without shutting down, allow things to be as they are. Remain open, extend from the center.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Suffusion with the Divine Abidings Chanting (Pāli) 3:55
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Day 3 Q&A2 47:34
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Relationship between manas and citta; excessive sexual images; what is the subtle body; breath as prana/breath of life; heart qualities that shift perception to vitality; opening energy centers; does energy discharge in standing meditation; working with psychological and emotional pain; resentment and anger arise when practicing at home; unlearning addiction to the clock.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Guided Meditation - Clearing the Body 15:43
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Beginning at the abdomen – the center of the body, the energy center – use a combination of awareness and breathing to open, relax and release areas of the body.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 The Three-fold Flood 53:02
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The floods that wash over citta – floods of sensuality, kamma and unknowing – make it unstable, causing it to constantly search outside of itself for an anchor. The training is for citta to sit back in itself – remain embodied and use the tools within its range to gain strength and weaken the underlying programs.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Puja - The Sacred 30:09
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In puja we align ourselves to the sacred. It gives our hearts a sense of purpose. Recollection of values and virtues are uplifted and sustained, giving rise to sappurisa – a person of integrity whose actions are for the welfare of all.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Morning Chanting, 5 Subjects for Frequent Recollection 8:16
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Day 3 Q&A1 42:27
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How do I know if I have stream entry; how is fasting a benefit for practice; is body contemplation needed, how often; how to live with someone who lacks integrity; sāti and samādhi; experience of rapture during meditation; difficult to see dukkha in sense pleasures; observing eight precepts; keeping ‘not eating after noon’ based on which time zone; issue of entitlement; receiving guidance from a teacher; understanding causes and conditions for clarity.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Feeling Creates the Person 24:23
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The effect of feeling, agreeable or disagreeable, touches the citta. The practice is not to contract around the resonance, don’t grab the feeling. It’s the clinging reflex that creates the person. Maintain open stable presence – go bigger and wider than the activations – and the grasping lessens.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Steering Thought 24:32
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We need to train and tame thought so we can use it carefully for inquiry and investigation. Steering away from the conceived, find out how citta is being affected. Supported by embodiment and qualities of goodwill and compassion, the tamed, trained thinking mind gives rise to insight – it’s a liberator.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload

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