Ajahn describes the framework of factors that the human body and mind have that receive experience. Walking instruction at 32:29

00:09 Q1 Could you speak about the experience of thinking and emotions. 06:09 Q2 I feel I have no control. The music in my mind keeps playing, I feel I am going mad. How can I cultivate mindfully without making thoughts and stories stronger. 20:59 Q3 How can I deal with grief over loosing loved ones? 28:19 Q4 Is it normal to feel warm and perspire during sitting meditation? 32:56 Q5 Does it matter how you place the hands during sitting meditation? 35:40 Q6 When one sees the light – I guess this is meditation nimitta – do you focus on the breath or follow the light? 37:47 Q7 [Should one] place attention on the entire body even when walking? 47:43 Q7 I have scoliosis and am uncomfortable in every position. Are there techniques to help with body and mental pain skillfully when I meditate? 52:59 Q8 Regarding the 12 links of dependent origination, which link is the weakest? 59:46 Q9 How do we enter the stream? 01:01:45 Q10 Can you elaborate on what you said about what Sariputta and Moggallana understood regarding the arising of the Tathagata?

Questions are précised 00:15 Q1 Can you clarify why the Buddha recommended sense restraint in cultivating citta? What harm does sense desire to the citta? 04:20 Q2 I have a picture that the sense organs are shooting stuff into the citta. Is that correct? 12:42 Q3 How can I overcome sound distractions to focus more on my breathing ? 18:59 Q4 The Buddha said, light arose and vision arose. What does this mean? 20:27 Q5 If we trust in awareness, would this lead to attachment to citta and become another soul? 24:09 Q6 I feel emotions deeply and am sometimes affected by other being seen and unseen, like ghosts. Also getting angry gives me power and sometimes I feel that metta softens and weakens myself to others. How can I protect citta, one’s sensitivity? 30:45 Q7 How to distinguish between self-care and attachment?

What we attend to and what we leave out needs wise assessment. This leads to a deepening of wisdom and the abandonment of daily compulsive habits.

We interact with experience as it happens, liking, disliking and bearing with. Developing a quality of balance provides for the end of personal dissatisfaction.

00:15 Can you clarify what is citta? And the asavas? 31:02 Q2 What is meant by nimitta? I’ve never experienced a light nimitta, but I experience calm and peace after I meditate. How can I go deeper into this? Q3 34:31 How can one speed up the process of becoming a stream enterer? 45:26 Q4 How do we practice mindfulness in daily life?

Examine how things become signs that catch our attention and enter our heart. Understanding the process can lessen delusion and provide us with protection and the development of wisdom.

Circumstances and changing events both shape our worldly life and allow growing insight into the inability to control events. We can learn what lies beyond circumstances.

Questions are précised: 00:00 Q1 What conditions the in breath and the out breath? Are the in and out breath, one breath? 30:51 Q2 I understand that after achieving samadhi one must do vipassana. Or there’s a need to direct the mind or to know what to see or look out for. 47:45 Q3 On retreat, every time the energy body unlocks some more space in my physical body and seems to open into a relaxing garden. Then it retreats. What’s your advice for my energy body to stay in the garden a bit longer? 51:31 Q4 Is it a must to see past lives to penetrate on the path? 52:34 Q5 I’m afraid of being born without wisdom and beauty. How can make sure I will always be close the dhamma in my next lives? 59:07 Q6 How can I establish daily meditation practice? What’s a good amount of time?

The seeds of practice take time to germinate and grow.

What is awareness? Where is it? What is ‘mind’ (manas).

Description pending

Walking meditation

1. How do you handle fear and doubt? 13:27 2. Can you explain the difference between mental feeling and emotional feeling? 16:30 3. I experience angry and unproductive thoughts over damage caused by the neighbours over 15 years. What do you suggest? 26:55 4. I experienced bullying when I was at school and I picked up a habit of trying to sleep through my classes inform the connection between aversion and drowsiness. Can you offer some suggestions please? 31:58 5. My main practice is practicing metta. Is it important to develop my meditation and walking practice alongside metta? 40:18 6. There's a negative mind state that I thought I should investigate but seem to have no energy to do so. As I continued to practice the mind state disappeared. Is it still important to investigate in case this complete lack of purpose and meaning returns?

The mass of suffering seems impenetrable. But through practice we see it's actually a weave, a net, which is mostly space.

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.