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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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2009-07-16 Growing a True Face 24:19
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Cittaviveka
2009-03-28 Boundaries and Space 35:07
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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
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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
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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
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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
2009-03-22 Absolute Honesty 28:48
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People talk about absolute truth, but what about absolute honesty? Honesty about craving and clinging. Craving and clinging focus on pleasure, but through following that we get addicted. To get off that, the recommendation is to cultivate enlightenment factors for support. Develop an inner axis, use one’s collectedness as a prop.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-21 Volition and The Rut of i am 46:09
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Generally, mind becomes tangled with concerns for the future, planning, wanting things to be completed, finished. But nothing is solid or definite; it’s never quite right. This is the First Noble Truth. In meditation we take attention off the topic to how am I handling the topic: how am I affected, does this lead to more suffering or less? Open, soften, let it travel through.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-18 Fading and Dispassion 47:07
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Cultivation is both about doing and not doing. Sometimes it’s about restraining and letting the roots of old habits die out. This requires the ability to step back and witness, and to stand firm against emotional pressure. When we can remain as the witness, there is the immediate fruit of freedom in that moment, and the long-term fruit of changing the tendency.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-10 Viveka-Taking The Step Back 59:18
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We try to avoid suffering, but end up perpetuating it instead. In meditation, we can tap into two aspects of wisdom – the ability to unhook and the ability to see. These allow us to relate to the experience of suffering in a way that brings it to an end.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-07 Mindfulness is the light of human consciousness 53:40
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Mindfulness is held up as the one thing in Dhamma practice, but although it’s important, it works along with a range of factors. Descriptions of mindfulness applied to the aspects of the 8-fold path are given.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-04 Coming Out Of The Boxes Of consciousness 48:09
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An exploration of the action of becoming, noticing how the sense of who we are arises with reference to past, future, self or other. These are boxes that leave many things out, while homing in on our kammic tendencies. Take action on the enlightenment factors to come out of the boxes.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-03-01 Guided Meditation - Put Aside and Stabilise 48:44
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Cittaviveka
2009-01-31 Patience With Views and All Else 51:31
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In meditation, rather than getting involved with liking and disliking, we practise letting things just pass through. The movements are just shifts in energy. Learn how to move with the changes rather than reacting with sorrow, resistance or craving. Cultivate patience with your mind as it rattles on, and with a life that isn’t going the way you want, until the mind becomes big enough to hold it all.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-01-28 Leaving The Samsaric Home 49:22
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The mind drags us into places, and we easily locate ourselves there. This is what I’m stuck in, this is what I am. How to get a handle? The samādhi approach is to deal with the energy, not the topic. The sīla approach is to refer to the skilful. The pañña approach is to recognize this for what it is. We need to know how to handle the energy of the mind, and to practise ethical intentions and investigation.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-01-27 Mindfulness of Movement 41:42
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The underlying bent of the mind is craving, that leaning of the mind to have, get, find, belong. In meditation we practise with loosening that craving energy, and introducing calming subjects for recollection. Walking meditation is a skilful means for loosening and gentling the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat
2009-01-25 Guided Meditation-receptivity in relaxation 46:13
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A guided meditation that focuses on accentuating the receptive aspect. Receiving energies without spinning out or tightening up, and without the ‘push forward’ reflex. Body and breathing form the basis of this practice.
Cittaviveka :  Winter Retreat

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