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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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2021-05-31 Day 2 Q&A 48:50
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What is practicing directly; differences between sāti sampajañña and sātipañña; meandering/curious attention when practicing; how important is jhāna; help working with our habits and blind spots; how to work with the inner critic; when to address things internally or externally with regards to other people.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Guided Meditation – Core Stability of Body 60:21
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Body’s somatic intelligence is receptive to signals – suggest signals of safety, space, freedom. Settle more deeply into the core stability of the body, where it’s not mediating with internal or external phenomena – restful, like a tree.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Know One’s Range 52:33
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Realization can’t be taught, but it can be induced. Stable in one’s presence – open, listening, attentive – one comes to know one’s own range, the place where your potentials can properly unfold without getting tangled and without overreaching. Absorb into this steady place to begin clearing the floods.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Guided Meditation - Recollection 27:10
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With recollection, we drop meanings into the heart and listen. It’s how we come to know experience directly. Recollections of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha help frame up our meditation and cultivation – how to act, what to put aside, what to say no to, what to say yes to, and how to do that in a measured way.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 Puja – The Path to Here and Now 11:31
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In this practice we are gently peeling back the layers of time and identity to come into something much more sensitive. The act of puja is a sign for citta. Praising and recollecting in both meaning and enactment mark the path of the here and now.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Chanting - Suffusion with the Divine Abidings (Pāli) 4:57
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Sharing Heart 10:26
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Once an open stability has been established, we can work from this basis, engaging decisively from the place of giving. Bringing the quality of a giving heart to mind, allow yourself to be touched and feel moved. Continue practicing with the resonances of the brahmaviharā.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Guided Meditation – Open Stability 23:17
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In meditation we’re resetting the dynamic movement of mental and physical energies with open energy. Using body as a guide, resonate the sense of balance and stability throughout. Let mindfulness deepen and maintain a wide-open energy that is receptive.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Refuge Mantra Chanting 1:31
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Guided Meditation – Rhythm and Energy of Breathing 42:57
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Deal with the compulsions of becoming by tackling energy in the body. Thoughtful breathing becomes comfortable and soothing. Its rhythm moderates the floods, diffusing stressful energies and psychologies. Heart and body draw close in the enjoyment. From this place of samādhi you can stand back from the most fundamental flood of becoming.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Day 1 Q&A 44:47
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Can we chant just in the heart, without sound; Buddhism’s view on healing with energy; how to work with various energy blocks and imbalances; feeling disoriented when letting go of a topic and giving attention to body energies; what importance to give to thought; how does one cultivate absorption, to be with intense emotions; when only eating before noon does hunger become an object of meditation.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Guided Meditation – Body Energy Fields 23:25
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In standing, sitting and free movement postures, exercise an attitude of goodwill, sympathy and encouragement to invite body channels to open. Energies know what to do – body wants to wants to arrive at wholeness.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Establishing Firm Ground 42:33
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To stand against the tide of the floods we need firm ground. Established first in the body, mental/heart energies pick up the same theme of stability and core presence. This is the process of samatha – calming, stabilizing, giving one firm ground.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Precepts – A Way to Cross the Floods 47:21
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Determining to keep precepts is a way to cross the floods. They help check and restrain urges of gratification, malice and escapism. Coming from a place of ethics and mutuality naturally gives rise to pleasant states of being, giving us an orientation we want to remain with rather than following the immediate pull of inclination.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Chanting - Recollection of the Triple Gem 5:26
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-30 Puja and Chanting 48:13
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Puja means honor or praise. It’s an important gesture to cultivate – the sense of rising up to something beautiful, something worthy. Making offerings, bowing, chanting and meditating are steadying and calming acts that massage the energies of body, heart and mind.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-29 Q&A 36:05
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Please explain why you got the COVID vaccine as I am hesitant; can meditation help with IBS; can’t exhale completely because in breath rushes in; does it matter if formal practice/meditation is less; is manas an impediment to citta or can it be used beneficially; how to get over the pain of divorce; how to ask someone to leave a community due to ethical reasons; when desire is abandoned how is avijja eliminated; elaborate on terms samādhi, atammayatā, nibānna.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-29 Guided Meditation - Fountain of Feeling 17:29
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The cycle of saṃsara develops from feeling. Perceptions then form that stimulate particular actions that can be stirring, disturbing, exciting. Investigate these from the stillness and stability of presence. What’s needed?
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-26 Going Forth to the Place of Realization 54:54
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Mind is always searching – in the personal, social and sensory realms – for solidity and satisfaction. But to find this, we must go forth – set aside the virtual world that we compulsively create and come into presence. This is the place of realization, where we meet what arises with the compassion, goodwill and discernment of the heart.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-22 The Power of Presence 38:16
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We seek steadiness and happiness from that which is inherently changing and unsteady – the constructed notions of future, past, myself and others. Withdraw from the tangle, acknowledge without getting involved. When you collect your heart with presence and acknowledge the tangle and the stress, there’s empathy rather than agitation. Good qualities naturally arise from that stable empathetic basis.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-22 Guided Meditation - Return to the Basis of Citta 13:33
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Encourage attention to find its way back through the tangle, back to the basis of citta. Sentient, present, withdrawn from the mental landscapes and the personal scenarios. Fully dwelt in, lingered in, citta, in its basis, is happy.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-19 Guided Meditation - Realization of Anicca 45:40
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The realization of changeability can be transformational and liberating. When we deepen into presence, we can review the contents of the mind with spaciousness – without identifying with anything, without creating a self. With this quality of relinquishment, wonderful dhammas arise – spaciousness, clarity compassion – the ending of suffering.
Cittaviveka
2021-05-15 Enrich Citta to Heal the Person 35:46
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Citta’s awakening intelligence is in its capacity to know and be touched. Rather than trying to change or complain about our situations, embrace the human condition with the qualities of pure citta and let that do the work. Citta is the most important thing – it’s what suffers, what leads and directs us, and what gets liberated.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-15 Guided Meditation - Chanting is Your Dhamma Footprint 12:17
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Chanting is like a subtle yoga. It uses your whole body in a non-straining way. We bring something forth into the world with our voices, and we open awareness to what’s around us, to the persistent flow of mental and emotional arisings. Don’t try to change anything, but receive it all with a kindly devotional heart.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-11 Converting Difficulty into Skilful States 61:12
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Cultivation, bhavana, can be described as the desire to bring forth skilful qualities. It’s an eager, inspired willingness to receive every situation that arises, and know what is needed to turn it into a skilful state. The old historical person begins to fade out, transformed by the deepened and strengthened resolve of the heart.
Cittaviveka
2021-05-08 Unshakable Deliverance of Mind 31:41
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Mind always has some purpose to it. The aim is to keep refining that, keep it from becoming corrupted. Sustain inner awareness and disengagement. The unshakable deliverance of mind is the ultimate goal, not shaken by the circumstances of life, aging, sickness and death. (Sutta reference: MN 29)
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-08 Guided Meditation - Trust the Simplicity of Body Breathing 12:12
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Instructions to establish an upright, open and relaxed posture, following the natural expanding and subsiding of breathing. This allows the internal aspect of the body to become more apparent. Train the mind to relax its preoccupations and return to the simplicity of body breathing.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-02 Noble Birth 14:11
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With the recognition of the ending of this session, consider birth: what we’ve been through is receding, nothing new yet has begun, and we’re not going back to the same old thing. Birth is arising into that which we’re not yet entirely clear about. Nourish the potency of arising with mental qualities of goodwill, compassion, celebration and equanimity.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Q&A2 45:41
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Where is the experience of bodily energies found in the suttas; what is the source of Ajahn’s ‘forensic precision’; how to us somatic presence with the 3rd and 4th foundations of mindfulness; please help with insomnia; experiencing resistance to standing meditation; grief and pain experienced with ‘Future and Past’ exercise; how to deepen into the ‘neither/nor’ space; is samādhi developed by sustaining sati; how to deal with overactive citta; how did you deal with the fear of death when being robbed in India?
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Direct Practice: Exploration of Other People and Self 28:33
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Open up the currents to other people – mistakes, grudges, hurt feelings – and listen. You can’t forgive if you’re still wounded. Use the brahmavihāra to open the heart towards others. Then you have not just cleared the floods, but have been enriched by the relational experience.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Walking Meditation – Walking Through the Mind 4:52
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In walking, experience the fluidities and exchanges of movement. Walk through the sense realm, noticing how objects change. Walk through your mental field in the same way, the wallpaper changing as you move along. Notes on reclining meditation conclude these instructions.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Direct Practice: Exploring Future and Past 17:06
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Practice with bringing up notions of future, past, other people and myself and the relationships between them. Receive what is activated in the body and mind without adopting them. Open to the feelings and movements that arise.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Guided Meditation – Exploration of Energies in the Head 23:32
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First grounding the body, then settling the breathing, guidance to explore and ease areas of the face and head.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Open Mind Open Heart Open Body 24:50
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Open mind and open heart require open receptivity – listening without taking on, accepting without adopting. This requires the quiet power of embodiment – acknowledgement – which isn’t doing anything other than acknowledging. Things then shift and pass on their own.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Standing Meditation – Open Energy 34:00
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The standing posture provides a simple process whereby energies can be balanced, soothed and steadied. Opening channels of the body so breathing can flow through, an open energy – light, spacious, repelling obstruction – becomes available.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-02 Precepts and Resolution 26:23
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It’s very helpful to start the day with resolution: What can I say no to? What can I say yes to? Using the precepts as a frame, generate boundaries that will moderate energies and help you remain firm and grounded in the face of the floods.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-01 Q&A1 47:28
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Help with hard-wired anger; how to think about ground, space and rhythm in a non-conceptual way; citta seems like a toddler; how to disengage from deep patterns of negativity; how to respond to boredom; is it recommended to thoroughly achieve samatha before moving on to vipassana; how to respond to deep pain in the heart; question about impermanence.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-01 Natural Discipline 37:40
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Worldly systems and structures keep us filled with activity, leaving us depleted and restless. What’s missing is pausing and discharging that any natural system includes. We can use the natural bodily system to reset body and mind and come into presence. This is where rest and replenishment are found.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-05-01 Guided Meditation: Sense Realm and Heart Realm – Negotiate the Two (39:15) London Insight, 1 May 2021 39:12
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Beginning with deep appropriate attention (yoniso manasikāra), attend to where your strengths and values are. Let them grow and be fully felt with awareness. This resources the heart so you can stand your ground in the face of the floods.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-01 Standing Meditation – The Body Is Intelligent 18:56
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Standing meditation compels full body awareness – one gets the sense that the body is intelligent. Once establishing a suitable stance and posture, give attention to how breathing feels in the body. Then, ‘What’s important now?’
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-01 Guided Meditation – Foundational Practice 28:44
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Beginning with a review of the terms mind, heart, body, consciousness, attention and awareness, this guided meditation takes us through their workings. Wise deep attention (yoniso manasikāra) keeps bringing us back to what’s important now.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-01 Introduction – Establishing Wise Deep Attention 19:14
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The floods of sense consciousness and delusion take us away from a place where we might feel stable, assured, comfortable. We experience a loss of autonomy and receptivity. We can use the quality of wise deep attention (yoniso manasikāra) to turn attention to the source of our actions and our being. The roots are found in the domain of body and mind.
London Insight Meditation :  Clearing the Floods
2021-05-01 Guided Meditation – Dhammavicaya 14:42
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Dhammavicaya gives us a way to acknowledge and explore phenomena without getting caught up in them. The act of acknowledging provides a place of stability and clarity, so you can relate to experience rather than be in it. Energy then shifts from the phenomena and reactivity to acknowledgement, truthfulness and relationship. This is where suffering can be allayed.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-26 The True Good Person (Sappurisa) 56:22
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The good person is considered to be the bedrock, the first condition that should be established, for someone seeking after liberation. We are both formed by associating with good people, and we can become good people. In meditation we purify the bodily base so it can act as the reference point for our intentions and behaviors. A sense of meaningful purpose and alignment to true duty then inform the ‘true person’.
Cittaviveka
2021-04-24 Dhamma Stream Q&A 42:27
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What is sati; How to stop awareness landing on negative thoughts; ‘Energies’ don’t seem to be mentioned much, what are they; What to do about lots of romantic preoccupations; Please review 4 relationships mentioned in last Dhamma Stream teaching: to self, to nature, the sacred, to other people; How to handle toxic relationships/ones that require forgiveness; How to deal with clashes with views in relationship; How do you maintain awareness in relationship?
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-24 Guided Meditation - Attentive Disengagement 18:10
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In meditation we’re making a shift from being engaged to being attentive but disengaged. Disengagement has a cool, easeful quality to it, giving us leverage against the strong emotional pressures of the mind. From this place we can make peace with the mind that is never at ease.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-17 Being a Person Pt. 2 35:09
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Aspects of this human life – where we live, what we do, who we associate with – become reference points for the person. How we relate to them affects how the person manifests. We can train in a relating that is stable and disengaged, neither favoring nor opposing, no longer finding fault with the world and thereby dismantling worldly attitudes.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-17 Guided Meditation - Stable Disengagement 17:38
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Body and mind work together to bring about the sense of stability and balance. Disengagement is then possible, becoming your frame of reference as phenomena arise. Agreeable feeling comes from disengagement.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-14 Guided Meditation – Let Open Restfulness Clean the Mind 51:32
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Within an open restful frame, things can be expressed, felt and sensed. It’s a chance for things to complete themselves and move on. The only effort is to stay in touch with this open restful frame. Just let the still openness work for you.
Cittaviveka
2021-04-10 The Inner Tyrant Q&A 19:48
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How to take the teachings seriously but not make them into causes for suffering; strategies for non-compulsiveness when writing; how to skillfully relate to regret and remorse over our past actions; advice for living with the constant conditioning of the world that does not support a harmonious way of living; role of being a teacher seems to make the inner tyrant virus worse – any advice?
Dharma Realm Buddhist University :  Unseating the Inner Tyrant
2021-04-10 Being a Person 27:12
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Although Dhamma practice is often geared to dissolving the sense of being a person, ‘the person’ is a required entity in the everyday world. The firm center and open awareness developed in Dhamma practice work together to support this person. They provide stability and allow duties, purpose and engagement to arise straight from the heart rather than from mental habits, or from the idea of a person. Then the beauties, steadiness and generosity of Dhamma practice and Dhamma fruitions arise in our everyday lives.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-10 The Inner Tyrant 31:37
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We are engaging in a world that is innately unsatisfactory. Yet, within that it’s important to find an accurate sense of purpose, ethical orientation and belonging. These are areas where the self-critical ‘inner tyrant’ quality will inevitably be activated. The Tyrant’s ‘I’m not good enough’ message can be recognized as a program rather than a meaningful description of ‘who I am’. Through the practices of disengagement, embodiment and goodwill, the program can be dismantled.
Dharma Realm Buddhist University :  Unseating the Inner Tyrant
2021-04-10 Guided Meditation – Dissolving and Consolidating 18:56
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Instructions begin with dissolving: guidance for disengaging from contact, soothing and steadying the mind. Instructions end with consolidating: determining what I want to move forward with in the future, and what’s been learned or left behind.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-10 Guided Meditation – Disengaging from Sense Consciousness 14:51
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In meditation we’re stepping back from sense consciousness, dipping beneath it to find something deeper, balanced and bearing value. This is where the wealth of our life lies, and it naturally comes forth when we disengage from sense data.
Dharma Realm Buddhist University :  Unseating the Inner Tyrant
2021-04-03 Emptying the Sense Fields 15:50
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Instructions to help empty the sense fields and cultivate the right kind of attention. Sustain a wide focus as sense objects arise in awareness. Practice with spreading attention on body, the wider visual field and the quality of breathing.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-03 Q&A 32:06
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Please describe āsava in relation to citta; nagging sense something is wrong with me; how to access kalyāṇamitta for support in Dhamma practice; neck and head feel separate from body in meditation; please clarify terms vitaka-vicāra, dhammavicaya and vimaṃsa.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-04-03 Dhamma Stream Q&A 32:06
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Please describe āsava in relation to citta; nagging sense something is wrong with me; how to access kalyāṇamitta for support in Dhamma practice; neck and head feel separate from body in meditation; please clarify terms vitaka-vicāra, dhammavicaya and vimaṃsa.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-03-27 Rest Intention through Embodiment, Dhamma Stream Live Puja 33:43
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Intention is the basis for action, giving shape to what we do and who we become. Conditioned intentions around beliefs, work and security cause stress. The process of meditation takes us into the somatic domain, to the roots of the mind. Here intentions and reflexes can be reset to be lighter, more flexible and comfortable.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-03-27 Breaking Out of the Box 43:33
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Conditioned by ignorance, we can end up concocting the very scenarios we feel trapped in. The citta leaves its own center and gets stuck in conditions. Samādhi gives us the possibility of disengaging from the tangles, and allowing wisdom to be directed to the heart of the problem – ignorance and outflows. This directed wisdom can dismantle the box we unconsciously create for ourselves.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-27 Dhamma Stream Guided Meditation – Jhāna is Based on Disengagement 11:57
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Properly establishing jhāna begins with disengagement. With eyes slightly open, downcast, poised between the inner and outer world, widen attention. Open up sensitivity of awareness without focusing on any particular object, attentive to the qualities that sustain that cool balance.
Cittaviveka :  At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down
2021-03-26 The Place Where the Floods Don’t Go 39:02
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The untrained mind is always half crazy. Citta has left the safety of its home and is affected by conditions and circumstance. But it can be trained to turn back to immovable ease, to remain in the place where the floods and tides of suffering don’t go.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-25 How to Not Go Crazy 41:31
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On account of the untrained citta, consciousness is skewed – its input is unstable, unsatisfactory, doesn’t fit. It can make one feel crazy. How to get free? In meditation we practice disengagement, the possibility to be ‘with it’ rather than ‘in it’. Lingering in that space, what can arise is action based on sanity, that comes from a trained and healthy citta.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-24 The Work of Ease 40:23
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It’s a natural inclination for citta not to suffer, but it’s confused, it needs to be trained. Citta can turn away from the tangles of ignorance towards signs that produce ease. Training with nimbleness and flexibility, citta becomes grounded, stable, not easily knocked over, easily handling what comes its way.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-23 Open the Centre, Reset the Boundaries 35:56
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Meditation is often approached from the standpoint of a person who ‘does’ the meditating. This self view is not a position that will give rise to calm or release – it’s the condition we want to be released from. Meditation can be used to change the ways we attend that form the separate self. Eventually the steadiness of mindfulness, rather than the ‘I am’ sense’, can become the orientation.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-22 The Happy Misfit 41:04
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Citta jumps and rushes towards experience it thinks will bring security. It’s a compulsion, an addiction. But citta can turn, starting with disengagement, then stabilizing and calming. Settle into the happiness of these effects, and you have a good foundation to eliminate the irrational drives and compulsions that cause suffering.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-21 Opening into Consciousness 38:01
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In meditation we rest into what’s always here. Like dropping a net into the river and seeing what we catch, we simply take note with awareness, deep listening and open presence. Use structures and qualities as a skillful tetherings, to turn citta away from the complexity of stimulation, activity and abstraction. When energies are no longer running out, citta settles in itself. This is samādhi.
Cittaviveka :  2021 Cittaviveka Winter Retreat Closing Group Practice
2021-03-17 Guided Meditation – Filtering the Flood 52:55
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In meditation we practice viewing the stream of circumstance from the place of acknowledgement. Let the stream flow past without getting into the details. Centering practices of body, presence, ethics and heart strengthen the possibility to shift attention from the outflows to here.
Cittaviveka
2021-03-13 Desperately Seeking Non-desperation 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
2021-03-03 Guided Meditation – Whole Body Awareness 54:38
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We may assume, and learn, that meditation is about focusing on details, but the Buddha advocates whole body awareness. Make an exercise of it, extending your awareness. Maintaining attention on the whole body doesn’t allow the mind to fixate – it stays open so the tangles and storms have no place to take hold. Posture, breathing and a receptive mind state all act as supports.
Cittaviveka
2021-01-29 Devotion and Discipline – Dhamma Protectors 47:34
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The 5 indriya are known as the Dhamma protectors. The complimentary qualities of devotion and discipline balance our approach to cultivation. Recommended is collecting oneself in body which provides leverage on restraining the thinking mind. Embodied intelligence – the inner, esoteric Dhamma – can then be accessed.
Sacred Mountain Sangha
2021-01-28 Dhammavicaya - Head and Heart 47:39
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There is fundamental puñña – value – in just being human. But citta doesn’t know its value, it gets lost in dreams, worries, passions, opinions. Collect oneself where body, thought and heart come together and investigate – where does the suffering end, where does fulfillment come from? Return to the place of innate value, stability, composure and clarity.
Cittaviveka
2021-01-21 Freshen Up through Integrity and Resolution 47:44
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Being affected by hindrances is a natural hurdle in Dhamma practice. Meet them by cultivating and suffusing wholesome heart qualities through the body. Application of integrity and resolution as we practice encourages citta to grow up and learn from the difficulties.
Cittaviveka
2021-01-16 Ācariya Puja – Aim Your Intentions High 60:08
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In Ajahn Chah, we commemorate and honor what’s possible in a human form. A seemingly ordinary person who applied all he had for noble purposes, training in what was difficult and cultivating pāramī. With this comes the severing of the outflows and the liberation of heart, a practice that many people can cultivate while engaging in life.
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2021-01-12 Untangling the Heart through Equanimity 44:34
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Place attention on themes that hold the mind and heart steady, using body to anchor the tangle of reactivity. Heart (citta) can then step back from phenomena and return to its own center that is knowing, equanimous, open. Investigation and handling of the somatic and emotional effects, rather than the topics, lead out of the tangle.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-11 Of Donkeys and Riptides 50:32
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When citta is collected in itself, it can begin to review the aspects of its experience that overwhelm and bind it, aspects not sensed or felt before. Train attention to go lightly, slow down, and open awareness to these unknown places. Fortify the citta with the rich energy of goodwill and recollections that warm the heart.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-10 Opening out of Reactivity 50:36
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We are encouraged to investigate the region of feeling, perception and reaction. By creating space before the reactivity, citta has the choice to go down the same path of agitation or settle back into itself. Develop citta’s capacity for this through seasoning the heart to be contented in itself.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-09 The Real World Begins in the Heart 44:01
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When we step back from the sense fields, citta can become steadied on itself. Clear meaning can come from this place of rest and ease. Then we can steer through input of the sense sphere, discern the meanings, and notice the effects in the heart and body. This is practice.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-09 Guided Meditation – Sensitivity in Embodiment 58:30
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The ability to sense and feel, read how citta is affecting body and body is affecting it – this is initiation into the process. Use the language of touch rather than seeing. Our fundamental base to support this process is the wide-open body. It contains all of the kammic stuff we need to work through.
Bodhi College :  Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
2021-01-08 Contact that Is a Release from Contact 43:20
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Liberation by wisdom comes from a healthy citta having resources to experience the range of contact and its effects. The gentle fluidity of practices like breathing and walking help soothe the agitation and fixity of contact so we can be with the feeling rather than in it. Then it can move, release, empty, cease.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-07 Unbind and Protect the Heart 42:33
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Citta’s receptive quality is both its vulnerability and strength. It has to be protected until it is strong enough to repel corrupting influences. Cultivate themes and meanings that unbind and strengthen the heart – Buddha, precepts, lovingkindness. Citta then has a place to withdraw to.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-06 Guided Meditation - The Inner Experience of Body 53:17
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What is directly here? It’s not the anatomy of the body with its individual parts. Using body and breathing as a base, tune into the inner experience of body. There’s energy there – living, vital, sensitive. Keep turning towards the calm and bright places in the heart and body.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2021-01-06 Settling into the Buddha Domain 38:40
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Retreat is an occasion for clearing away certain inputs and intentionally placing others. Buddha – upright, clear, deeply centered. Emphasize the receptive aspect, listen deeply, linger. Gently allow awareness to become enriched by Buddha qualities, pervading body, heart mind.
Cittaviveka :  Awakening Through Heart, Cittaviveka Winter Retreat 2021
2020-12-29 Correcting the Foundations - Full Moon Lunar Observance 54:39
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Citta is confused. It has taken the wrong baseline and lost its foundation in itself – its own clarity, purity, knowing. Direct experience is the way back. Touching into qualities that strengthen and uplift citta, feeling the effects, and listening. Citta is freed from false baselines and settles in itself.
Cittaviveka
2020-12-20 Guided Meditation - View from the Balance 22:06
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Encouragement to have the courage and faith to go against the obligations of our lives and take time to center in citta. Amidst the activities of mind, there’s a place of balance and rest, release and non-clinging.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-20 Open to Wise Attention 48:39
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We bounce off dukkha rather than digesting it, bound to experience the same characteristic of dukkha in another form. The guiding capacity of citta is wise attention. We must learn to widen and lengthen our attention span. In this space we can contemplate dukkha rather than react to it. Dispassion and goodwill, the natural actions of heart, can then arise.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-19 Q&A - Energies, Afterlife, Art, Cruelty, Self and Asubha 39:38
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-19 Walk Like a Boat 3:57
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A suggestion for walking meditation, to move like a boat down a river, citta open like a sail spread on the mast. Move through the water of thoughts, impressions, memories. Walk with difficult moods that arise, holding lightly, listening and receiving.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-19 Learning and Expanding Stillness 45:25
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Citta is used to feeding on stimulation. Use balance and breathing to settle it, get it interested in that still point. Focus on the stillness of dispassion and cooling.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-19 Stillness Flowing 46:11
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Meet the constant flow of life with the stillness and poise of citta. Relate to it all with respect and mutuality, learning to adapt, flow and listen to life. Practice with cultivation of subtle energies of body and heart and with samādhi. Sutta Reference: SN1:1
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-19 Q&A - Balancing Attention, Intention, 3rd Satipaṭṭhāna, Sound of Silence 29:06
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-19 Guided Meditation - Turning to 'I' 14:48
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Beginning the process of centering, set aside what isn’t relevant right now. Strengthen the bodily reference to help support citta. Acknowledge the sense of I am – what is the I, how is that experienced?
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-18 Q &A - Citta, Clearing Afflictive Moods, Restoring Relatedness 32:04
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-18 Easeful Ceasing 48:56
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Citta needs to be trained to rest back from engagement. By not going into the stories, spreading awareness over the entire body, and letting emotions rise and pass. As citta releases from contact, it accesses a finer more lasting and agreeable sense of security and well-being.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-18 Guided Meditation - The Still Centre 35:28
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The energy of citta is conjoined with bodily energy. Steadying and brightening body gives citta a place to rest so it can withdraw from phenomena. With the disentangling from phenomena, the quiet center of citta, the knowingness, becomes more apparent.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-18 Q&A - Causality, the World and the Way 29:44
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-17 Bojjhanga and Q&A on Citta 43:10
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-17 Exploration and Patience 9:10
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Dhamma is a direct experience. You can directly touch it and open up to it. Handle it more with curiosity than trying to figure out what to do about it. Patient, receptive, as the meditator becomes more open stuck mental states can fall away.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-17 Touch What You Don't Know 57:19
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The tool of wisdom cross references thinking, emotion and body. Body helps reveal the heart. Use it to sense and handle emotion. This is using embodied wisdom for the purposes of calming and revealing. It’s how you get to know the bits you don’t know.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-16 Tune in and Open 53:19
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Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation
2020-12-16 Why Chant? 4:31
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Chanting is a resounding of the potentials of realization. Be part of the celebration, it’s very good for the heart. Put your voice in that and be part of the flow.
Cittaviveka :  Living, Dying and Liberation

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