The poetic nature of puja allows one to enter, touch the mind and know it directly.

00:08 1. The word restraint brings up a lot of aversion in me. I feel as if it's an imposition on me. It is asking me to give up a known pleasure that can be felt now, or soon, for an unknown pleasure on the path that I may get to experience. It just doesn't add up. How do you see restraint? 06:33 2. You said something about how right views and virtue put the body and the mind in position that leads to right concentration and insight. I think I missed some steps. Can you clarify please? 15:24 3. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and struggle with doubt from time to time what is the nature of doubt? How can I work with it? 22:50 4. Questions about energy: a) You spoke about energy and awareness being open as opposed to closed. I have a hard time visualizing this as energy and awareness are all contained within the body. b) What's the relationship between steadiness in the flow of energy in the body and mind? c) How to turn to qualities in the bodies such as steadiness that support these same qualities in the citta? 37:56 5. What is it to be receptive? It seems receptivity also includes a skillful way of evaluating things too. Perhaps the other end of receptivity is being a doormat? 43:04 6. In walking meditation I'm learning to trust my feet to lead me to adapt to uneven terrain. However my left side gets tense. I find a reluctance to be at ease. 46:58 7. Regarding the subjects for frequent recollection, could you elaborate on the idea that the wise could find fault with my conduct.

When virtue is straight one’s view is straight, you establish mindfulness, realizing that what you do, think and say has significance. Exercising attention, awareness and intention, we develop a sense of embodiment, stabilizing attention on it.

Sitting starts at 19:40

Precepts are a vehicle for happiness and comfort for the heart – supporting that which can be liberated.

Using a retreat for internal strengthening / cleaning, starts with an inventory of where we are and what's happening. It's a deep caring for oneself and one's experience. (Offered at ATBA.)

The subtle body or energy body is a layer of experience we can explore. It's not esoteric, it's a normal part of life we can learn from. (Recorded during Ajahn's New Zealand trip)

Recorded during Ajahn's New Zealand trip

The open state is unrushed, receptive to all the six senses. It receives them with a basic intelligence that stays intact and responds.

00:18 Q1 When experiencing feelings and emotions is it part of the practice just to experience the suffering?07:59 Q2 When dealing with powerful emotions, is the foundation that you speak of built from continuous practice, being real? 17:15 Q3 If self enquiry is to bring us to a place of open heatedness, why do we carry these stories with us? How has that come about, that is has become so important to us? 33:43 Q4 Do you think that as you go on the path that you can experience suffering more? Because you are more aware of it? 46:34 Q5 How do you develop the level of understanding and insight that you have? 52:36 Q6 How can we find the balance between intentionally cultivating skillful qualities and accepting or allowing them to emerge?

In taking refuge we seek an environment where we feel we can find ourselves, be safe and grow. How can we operate in or even transform our relationship to the toxicity of the world?

We discover a sense of purpose in considering the notion of path. But the path does not lead to a place, it is the end of places.

From New Zealand - 02:19 Q1 What is the difference between heedfulness and mindfulness? 10:24 Q2 I often hear the words: “Your dukka is not personal”. There seems so much behind this but it seems this does not heal the situation in the moment. What can you say about this please? 22:37 Q3 I have a chronic illness which comes on suddenly and affects many parts of my body. I carry a lot of fear about getting sick. It affects my breathing. Can I use something other than the breath in calming myself? 27:10 Q4 I’d like a better understanding of papancha / proliferation please. 33:39 Q5 Sometimes I feel unsure of how to go about connecting with others. How can I get my social needs met without being demanding on others?

From New Zealand

Balancing effort and purifying kamma. Learn to be with what is uncomfortable, including personal mistakes. Cultivating the noble heart requires forgiveness. (at ATBA in Auckland)

How to stay at ease in the world as it is.

How do we get to what the Buddha called, the end of the world? Ajahn points to a practice of exploring the internal / subtle body and its relationship to mental serenity.

Practice is a matter of carefully noticing and moderating feeling.

Persistent mindfulness through changing conditions reveals portals to liberation: Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta.

How to withdraw energy from the mind - and why.

...(And is released from) three threads.

How to steadily warm rather than get fried.

Ajahn explores the sutta on the two acrobats, illustrating the theme of protection of oneself and others, and their inter-relationship.

Using mindfulness of the body to chill emotional reactions.

Four standard themes for reflection that turn the mind inwards towards Dhamma.

We express the precepts through our external behaviours and internally by how we react to the world. Gaining internal support for coolness and richness to discover our proper centre.

Reframing ‘Dhamma practice’ as ‘Dhamma entry’ gives us a handle on working with what arises in any aspect of our life.

We can practice by remembering that we participate in a global communion that has been going on for thousands of years, for our welfare and that of others.

Through practice we form the occasion of goodness, and this occasion forms us, strengthening composure and wisdom. This is the circularity of dhamma, of the process that transcends the specific occasion of retreat.

Remembering mindfulness is challenged when moving from retreat to an interactive domain. Attune your mindfulness to the uncertainty of life in the most basic experience of body, feeling, citta and “stuff that comes up”.

00:25 Regarding rebirth or further birth, Therevadans and Tibetans seems to have very different things to say about this. Is it useless speculation to consider what happens after death? 13:17 Can you please distinguish between kilesa, asava and anutsara? 17:41 Why is consciousness likened to an illusion? 31:22 Could you please speak about the external and internal aspect of the sense fields mentioned in the satipatthanna? 36:03 I get very stirred up when I received kindness from others. What do you suggest? 41:35 You mentioned a tendency to look for open space as related to an experience as an infant of being confined in a cradle. How did that memory and understanding come up for you? 46:09 Can you remind us about mano sancetana – what it is and how it works? 53:57 Is nibanna a description of a mind in which the defilements are uprooted or is it that which does the uprooting? 55:21 Can you speak about the significance of noticing neutral sensations? Why is this useful? 56:51 Vicara and dhamma vijaya both explore an object. How are they different or similar? 1:00:18 I’d appreciate some more specific instructions about the movements and placements of hands during the bowing ritual.

Using ritual to wrap around the day provides a stable frame to hold the circumstantial world. Its images and resonances create a place marker (nimmita) for contemplation.

These “treasures of the contemplatives” are important in the culture of gladdening the citta. In the citta’s own bounty we find what our life needs.

Puja provides a steady frame for meditation and helps to ward off dullness and stale familiarity in daily practice. Its fresh vitality undermines ingrained behaviours and attitudes.

Through retreat we learn the trigger points where the I Am occurs. We see the potential for a remedy, a liberated citta, by removing the self from the picture and trusting embodied awareness.

Recalling our moral behaviour, our generosity, we experience the joyful energy that results. Citta enters samadhi when it is gladdened.

Sometimes the heart feels trapped distracted, or passionately involved with experience. This too changes. Training the citta to know itself releases this.

Meeting what is disappointing and frustrating in an unfamiliar way and through contemplating the immediate experience of body and mind, release ownership. This reveals warm heartedness and compassion.

Citta is central to our experience of life and can be experienced separately from the energies and moods it is so involved with. It's a kind of '"awareing" that can be contemplated as sense data lands.

This embodiment practice is for simplification, a pruning that reveals harmony and harmlessness. It’s not a technique to achieve something.

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Taking off your social identity is a huge relief. Examine the qualities of heart, mind and body. Authenticity and persistence are food for the heart.

We use retreat experience to loosen up how we see and experience our habits and feelings. We see citta being shaped by clinging, being bound into the aggregates.

00:00 Retreat culture seems rather elitist in some ways. What would the Buddha make of IMS Forest Refuge? 04:13 You talked about feeling feelings, so they can move through. Any tips on how to do this without getting embroiled in negative feelings? 19:28 Can you talk about working with knots or obsessions that are very strong? 26:33 Can you speak about neutral vedena. It seems most experience is neutral. 28:46 What is meant by worldly and unworldly vedena? 30:25 What is meant by internal and external vedena? Might external mean sensitive to other beings, being sensitive to their presence? 35:30 What is the relationship of the citta, the fine material, the ordinary sensorial body and to the felt sense of embodiment?42:09 How does the citta settle into knowing? 47:28 Regarding upekkha and the other brahma vihara, when do these wholesome states become another “project”, something to do? 49:37 What’s the difference between upekkha in the brahma vihara and upekka as an enlightenment factor? 51:31 How can one fulfil ones’ duties, roles and responsibilities in a way that inclines towards letting go and releasing the sense of self? 57:54 I’ve been taught that it’s better to pause and linger at the end of the inhalation but it seems to get tight. What can you suggest?

All things converge on feeling. Using mindfulness, we can scan our experience, developing authority over feeling - and wisdom to discern how things actually are.

Body awareness notices the energy that creates form, of the body and the mind/citta. It creates a "me", a blueprint for suffering. Wisdom is an observer that is not taken over by it.