Dharma Seed - Ajahn Sucitto's Dharma Talks

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In Memoriam: Rick Woudenberg

The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings

Ajahn Sucitto's Dharma Talks

Ajahn Sucitto

Ajahn Sucitto's Website

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.

Sitting in a field of fifty to eighty people really starts my mind sparking. Since I don't prepare my talks ahead of time, I find myself listening to what I'm saying along with everyone else. This leaves a lot of room for the Dhamma to come up. Just having eighty people listening to me is enough to engage me, stimulate me, and create a nice flow of energy. The actual process of teaching evokes ideas that even I did not realize were being held somewhere in my mind.

Different teaching situations offer their own unique value. In retreat, you are able to build a cohesive and comprehensive body of the teachings. When people are not on retreat and come for one session, it opens a different window. They are more spontaneous and I'm given the chance to contact them in ways that are closer to their "daily-life mind." This brings up surprises and interesting opportunities for me to learn even more.

I'm continually struck by how important it is to establish a foundation of morality, commitment, and a sense of personal values for the Vipassana teachings to rest upon. Personal values have to be more than ideas. They have to actually work for us, to be genuinely felt in our lives. We can't bluff our way into insight. The investigative path is an intimate experience that empowers our individuality in a way that is not egocentric. Vipassana encourages transpersonal individuality rather than ego enhancement. It allow for a spacious authenticity to replace a defended personality.

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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

2009-03-22 Absolute Honesty 28:48	Download Listen
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	Download Listen
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	Download Listen
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	Download Listen
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	Download Listen
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	Download Listen
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	Download Listen
Cittaviveka

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