Donate  |   Contact


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.
     1 2 3 4 ... 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 ... 111 112 113 114
2009-09-29 Establishing Thoughtfulness and Reflection (vitakka-vicara) 36:43
Download Listen
To meditate refers to placing the mind on a conducive object. There are functions that support meditation: vitakka –applied thoughtfulness/consideration; and, vicara – reflective evaluating, taking in the effects of what we apply ourselves to. Various applications of vitakka-vicara are reviewed, from the 5 indriya to mindfulness of body and breathing.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-09-26 The One Thing You Can Do 49:52
Download Listen
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-09-12 Tidying Up 34:13
Download Listen
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-08-09 Guided Meditation 48:42
Download Listen
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-08-06 Suttas 2 - The Gradual Training 56:34
Download Listen
A reading of Sutta extracts that describe the step-by-step instructions of the Buddha. 1) Vin. Mahavagga (on Yassa); 2) DN 2 – Sāmmaññaphala Sutta; 3) MN 53 – Sekha Sutta; and, 4) MN 125 – The Grade of the Tamed. There are similarities across the lists. They refer not so much to ‘do this’ and ‘do that’ kind of lists, but describe a process of cause and effect: do this and allow that, dwell in that, and this will take you to the next step. It is subtler than steps of a technique.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-08-02 Guided Meditation 44:58
Download Listen
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-26 Guided Meditations 43:49
Download Listen
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-22 Suttas 1 - Picking Up the Teaching 60:37
Download Listen
A reading of excerpts from the Suttas related to how one gets encouraged to undertake the practice. 1) AN 3:65 – Kālāma Sutta; 2) MN 95 – Cankī Sutta; and, 3) MN 70 – Kīṭāgiri Sutta. Some common threads are qualities of self-questioning, questioning one’s motivation, knowing what’s reliable, knowing how to test it out.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-19 Guided Meditations 44:24
Download Listen
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-18 The Most Obvious Important Thing 48:04
Download Listen
We have something in us that naturally searches for pleasure, searches for meaning. We go out to find it, but it’s actually right here in our embodiment. The indriya are expressed in our embodiment, they support embodied intelligence. Focus on the practises that establish these faculties. As they come together, everything rests, there’s a ceasing, you can relax.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-17 Dhamma Body is Nobody's 30:09
Download Listen
A reflection on the tendency to attach to external forms. Can we make use of these systems and structures without getting so wrapped up in them? Cultivation of the 5 indriya helps establish appropriate relationship to the world. As they come together, you start to see the 4 Noble Truths. It’s the only thing that’s really sure!
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-16 Growing a True Face 24:19
Download Listen
A lot of practice is about working with difficult mind states, emotional currents, and personality patterns. With the establishment of basic ground, we bring together a unified Dhamma body that holds us steady. It gives us a reference point, a presence, that drains power out of the hindrances and allows us to meet difficulties that arise.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-14 Natural Mind - Strength, Warmth, Clarity 29:34
Download Listen
With mindfulness there’s a deepening into mind. When established you feel the flow of natural responses. Mindfulness places us back into these fundamental qualities of basic strength, basic warmth, basic clarity. The practise is staying with that, letting confused restless energies settle into that. That’s where samadhi can arise.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-13 Five Faculties - Indriya 22:07
Download Listen
The indriya (faith, energy, mindfulness, collectedness, discernment), sometimes called the governing faculties, are capacities we already have and operate through in some rudimentary form. This teaching gives a description each, and how they can be developed to become supportive faculties. When they come together, they merge in the deathless.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-12 Guide Meditation on Breathing 46:45
Download Listen
Keep in mind, attention is on breathing rather than a breath – a process, not a specific thing. Making use of vitakka-vicara, linger and pick up the quality of breath-energy as it moves through. Hold the form, keep the inquiry, remain in the present moment. What is the breathing now?
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-12 Lawless Order 23:57
Download Listen
There are certain inclinations we have as human beings. These boil down to the indriya – dominating faculties – of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. They can go wrong, become sources of suffering if they’re not balanced through awareness. Various examples of how they manifest, and how to keep them in harmony are given.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-11 Having Fun (Skillfully) 36:40
Download Listen
The experience of having fun, enjoyment, is an energy. The problem comes when we locate it externally, then attach to it, self-orient around it. A skilful person knows how to cultivate pleasure in themselves. Practise with meditation. Find out what blocks it and what encourages it. The Buddha taught pleasure as a way to awakening.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-11 Walk Back to Center 18:31
Download Listen
In whatever activity we engage in, meditation through the postures is a matter of returning to presence – to that awareness which can know. With walking, don’t do the walking, meditate the walking. Maintain a core presence that doesn’t participate and doesn’t shut anything out. Meet everything with openness and alertness, like a mother welcoming her children.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-09 Opening the Door 16:43
Download Listen
Encouragement to make an effort with the retreat form. Give particular attention to posture. To clean and purify you have to open up the house, open up the body. Open up the world, the doors to heaven and hell. Whatever comes through, keep the door open, let the energies blow through. Body is where we can break the cycle of samsara.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-07-07 How Real is the Real World - Asalha Puja 54:33
Download Listen
The so-called real world is concocted from our fears, beliefs, obsessions. All of which are changeable and conditioned. There is a real that the Buddha spoke of: he called it the peaceful, the sublime, the unbounded. It’s not located in time and space, but it’s experienceable. Form and function, when appropriately considered and applied, can serve as our vehicle to the real.
Cittaviveka :  Vassa Retreat
2009-04-26 Guided Meditation - Staying With It 41:41
Download Listen
Cittaviveka
2009-03-28 Boundaries and Space 35:07
Download Listen
Space seems like the opposite of boundaries, but space is there because of boundaries. So in order to give yourself some space internally you have to create boundaries in the mind. Know what to set aside, and moderate what you pick up in terms of future, past, self and other people. Those are the four areas that turbulences occur around. You don’t have to be trapped and meshed up with this.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-27 Unsupporting Consciousness 24:42
Download Listen
In meditation we can come to recognize what the mind leans upon and why – and how everything it leans on falls apart. The most stable and secure abiding is unsupported consciousness – the removal of all props – ‘this is peaceful, this is sublime.’ It leads to cessation, a place of rest.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-25 Touch The Earth, Find Your Ground 49:49
Download Listen
Learning to stay with the flow of experience in a non-conflicting way is quite difficult. Recollecting how the Buddha called on the Earth for support when confronted by the host of mara, we too can find support in the ground of our presence and virtue.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-24 Getting Impermanence 29:37
Download Listen
The Buddha’s last words were: ‘All sankhārā are impermanent; make an effort with diligence.’ Is there a place where self, other, past, future don’t happen? That’s what we meditate for. It takes us under the froth to the root of where the turbulence is coming from. These formative patterns have energy, but through bearing presence, they gradually lose their intensity and dissolve.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat

     1 2 3 4 ... 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 ... 111 112 113 114
Creative Commons License Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Dharma Seed is a 501(c)(3) Non-profit organization. email: contact@dharmaseed.org