| |
|
Dharma Talks
|
2021-01-29
Devotion and Discipline – Dhamma Protectors
47:34
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
2020-12-11
Q&A
15:10
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Is citta/mindfulness always present; who is attending to the citta; where does citta’s luminosity land; eyes opened or closed in meditation; thinking during discernment; use of cooling and warming in relation to what’s arising.
|
|
Bodhi College
:
Citta: Mind, Heart, Spirit
|
|
|
2020-08-26
Worrier Pose: Finding Freedom from the Body of Fear
59:27
|
|
Tara Brach
|
|
|
While fear is a natural part of our make up, many of us suffering when the “on” button gets jammed. This talk looks at how our fears generate habitual patterns of physical tension, anxious thinking, emotions and behaviors; and how this constellation prevents us from inhabiting our full wisdom and love. We then explore two interrelated pathways of healing—unconditional presence, and resourcing, or cultivating access to safety and belonging (from the IMCW Fall 2018 7-Day Silent Retreat).
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
|
|
|
2020-02-23
Mindfulness of Breathing
11:37
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Mindfulness of breathing is the gathering of attention around a process that is flowing and fluid. The steady and suffusive quality of breathing eases tensions in the heart and mind. The thinking process quietens down and external sights and sounds don’t impinge allowing the natural qualities of the heart become more apparent.
|
|
Emoyeni Retreat Centre
:
Clearing and Renewal
|
|
|
2019-12-17
Death and the Poignancy of Life
61:37
|
|
Matthew Brensilver
|
|
|
William James said that death was the ‘worm at the core’ of the human condition that turns us all into ‘melancholy metaphysicians.’ A century later, awareness of mortality is documented to affect our thinking and emotional lives in powerful ways. It figures prominently in Buddhist practice.
In what ways does consciousness of death distorts our view and lead us away from wisdom and compassion? Alternatively, how can we open to the truth of finitude such that our heart is softened? Can we intuit the freedom or love that might be released were we more deeply at peace with our mortality?
In this evening program, we’ll consider the way death can harden or soften our heart – and how dharma practice might lead us to a life that feels complete. All are welcome.
|
|
New York Insight Meditation Center
|
|
|
2019-06-19
Q&A
2:07:10
|
|
Ajahn Achalo
|
|
|
Questions are précised. Q1 0:00 - Could you explain the meaning of mind? Q2 14:29 - When watching the breath, continuous attention is difficult due to the interference of thinking. How can we overcome this? Q3 28:14 - What are the basic techniques of meditation for a beginner Q4 39:12 - Before starting meditation should we practice yoga to train our mind? Q5 40:52 During breath awareness meditation, should we take the breath consciously, or see the natural process of breathing? Q6 42:00 Can you explain the process of metta meditation and how it helps to overcome anger, frustration and resentment. Q7: 46:00 What is mindfulness meditation? How is it practiced? Can we practice it while working in the office? Q8 52:36 I have acute pain in the knees and ankles when I sit. Are there any exercises that would help? Q9 56:12 When I meditate I usually feel sleepy. Why is this? Q10 1:00:19 When I meditate I see colours and lights, hear the sounds and feel fully aware of what is happening around me. What is this state? Q11 1:02:51 When I meditate my thought processes get very sharp, and more and more very good ideas seem to come into my mind. Hence, now I know I am fond of thinking rather than meditating. Please advise me. Q12 1:13:02 How can we shift from samatha to vipassana meditation? How long will it take a beginner to practice vipassana? Q13 1:20:50 How can we identify the improvements and development of mental states we've achieved as a result? Q14 1:26:50 During meditation I see a lot of incidents / situations mentally, which I have never experienced in day-to-day life. What is this? Q15 1:29:32 When I go to bed I usually try to pay attention to my breath. Is this good or will it negatively affect my sitting meditation? Q16 1:30:29 How long one should practice meditation to achieve samadhi? May I know a program or meditation schedule in order to achieve this state? Q 17 1:33:15 I joined a new company that meditates 15 minutes before work daily. Why I didn't get this opportunity before? Was it an effect of my kamma?
|
|
Colombo
|
|
|
2019-06-01
Spiritual Bypassing: When We Do Not Want to Look Honestly
1:38:51
|
|
Ajahn Sukhacitto
|
|
|
Sometimes, we want to escape our problems and challenges of life and turn to meditation for a rest or to experience quiet and peacefulness. In some ways, we may now be spiritually distracting ourselves from our feelings, thinking that we are walking a healthy spiritual path. This effort is often referred to as spiritual bypass, which ultimately serves as a defense mechanism.
This defense mechanism, in this form of Spiritual Bypass, shields us from the truth, disconnects us from our feelings, and helps us avoid the things we could be looking at. It is more about checking out than checking in, and we often don’t even realize that we are doing it. How can we use Dhamma practice to integrate meditation and insight more fully into our lives? Can Dhamma principles guide us in all that is happening? In this evening program, we will explore these questions and our practice by meditating with a talk and exchange and looking at honestly at our meditation practice and our intentions.
This event was offered by donation
|
|
New York Insight Meditation Center
:
Diving Deep: Living the Satipatthana Sutta
|
|
|
2019-05-23
Finding Refuge in Difficult Times
51:01
|
|
Kate Munding
|
|
|
I hope coming to the monastery, sitting together, and listening to the Dharma provides you with a sense of refuge in these times of unsettled political climate, social divide, and global uncertainty. I've been thinking about how the practice can provide a "place" to come back to when we need clarity and balance. Unfortunately, that "place" is not always easily accessed when one is stressed or overwhelmed even though it's in those times we need it the most. I want to address this in the meditation instructions and Dharma talk by emphasizing ways to become more grounded in the present moment and understanding of how to familiarize ourselves with the unwholesome mind states that can spin us into more fear and unrest. When we strengthen our capacity in this way, we find we have more agency to meet personal and global realities that are difficult to face while still cultivating deep happiness, equanimity, and joy in life.
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
:
IMCB Regular Talks
|
|
|
2019-05-01
From the Ordinary Habitual Mind to the Buddha-Mind 4: Practicing with the Body 2
66:25
|
|
Donald Rothberg
|
|
|
We contextualize our conditioning in relationship to the different “parts” of our experience—related to our thinking, emotions, and body—by examining some the social and cultural history of the last few hundred years, in which thinking has been increasingly differentiated from emotions and the body. We then examine further the nature of our ordinary, habitual experience of the body. The main focus is on a number of “body practices,” including mindfulness of the body in both formal meditation and daily life, ways to self-regulate when there is high activation, using the body in investigation of experience, and the body as a key to presence in speech and interaction.
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Monday and Wednesday Talks
|
|
|
2019-03-08
Compulsive Thinking, Concentration & Equanimity
60:15
|
|
Matthew Brensilver
|
|
|
Meditation practice cultivates a diverse set of attentional, emotional and introspective skills.
Central to the practice of mindfulness is the stabilization of attention. But before our attention stabilizes, practice can be overstimulating.
This talk will explore the process through which the mind comes to rest. In developing this steadiness, equanimity (the capacity to fully permit the flow of both pleasure and pain) is a vital skill.
We will see how concentration and equanimity reinforce each other and support a deeper understanding of ourselves. And how this stability, in turn, makes space for the heart to respond with joy and compassion.
|
|
New York Insight Meditation Center
:
NYI Regular Talks
|
|
|
2018-09-25
All Kinds of Kindness
54:18
|
|
Nathan Glyde
|
|
|
Exploring metta in what we do, the way we do it, and the atmosphere we attune with, for the relief of dukkha borne of craving. Opening out the Gosinga Forest sutta’s (MN:31) description of three types of metta activity: bodily fabrication (physical activity and the energy body), verbal-thinking (two sorts of thinking: metta and not metta), and mental fabrication (intention, perception, attention).
|
|
SanghaSeva
:
Metta and Emptiness
|
|
|
2018-05-03
Meditation: The Silence That’s Listening
27:15
|
|
Tara Brach
|
|
|
Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. In this guided meditation, we begin by opening to sound and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life – allowing whatever is here to be just as it is. In the foreground, we notice the dance of sensations, thoughts, emotions…rising up and falling away. And in the background, a wakeful, receptive presence – the silence that is listening. When we let go of all doing and relax back into this alert stillness, we sense our true nature…our home.
In words from the Tibetan tradition: “Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating, allowing awareness.”
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
2018 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
|
|
|
2018-02-06
Checking and moderating thought - Guided meditation
61:38
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Settling into sitting meditation, tracing posture and energy up the back and down the front, spherical breathing from abdomen. [Bell at 38:17] [Instructions at 40:27] Invitation to loosen the intensity and congestion of thought - vaci-sankhāra, that which forms thought energy. Rather than not thinking, take time to formulate what to think about and bring heart qualities into that. This is a dhamma practice.
|
|
Bandar Utama Buddhist Society
:
Meditation Retreat with Luang Por Sucitto
|
|
|
2017-07-29
09: Q&A: Am I Wasting My Opportunity Staying As a Lay Person?
45:09
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto responds to this question by first reframing it – rather than thinking: here’s the real world, how can I fit my practice into that? Consider: here’s the real practice, what kind of world can I operate in from that place? The reality that’s available to us all, regardless of place or position as monastic or lay person, is refuge. And the real refuge is in your presence. Be a refuge unto yourself.
|
|
Aruna Ratanagiri Buddhist Monastery
:
Retreat with Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
2017-03-22
Relying on Your Gut Intelligence
24:08
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
In this morning talk, Ajahn Sucitto points to a gut intelligence we all have that can be relied on to save us from the thinking mind. The thinking mind creates suffering. Our embodied (gut) intelligence is a savior, a source of safety; it always tells the truth.
|
|
Tisarana Buddhist Monastery
:
Morning Meeting Offerings
|
|
|
2016-09-29
Clinging
61:13
|
|
Sally Armstrong
|
|
|
Though the 2nd Noble Truth points to craving as the cause of suffering, clinging – upadana – is inextricably woven into the experience of suffering. With craving we are reaching towards the object or experience, in clinging we are trying to hold onto it, and make it I, me or mine. Clinging is central to how we create a sense of self through the five aggregates, as pointed to in the first noble truth. We can bring awareness to the process of craving leading to clinging leading to the creation of a sense of self as depicted in the teaching on Dependent Origination, as it is often accompanied by physical energy we can recognize and certain types of thinking. Being mindful of this process allows us to respond wisely, decreasing or abandoning the clinging, and therefore not getting caught in the delusion of self.
|
|
Insight Meditation Society - Retreat Center
:
Three-Month Part 1
|
|
|
2016-09-14
Calming the Body with Breathing
33:04
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
In and out breathing has the potential to smooth out and calm the body's energy field. Use the thinking mind to point to and stay with the energy of the breath. The affective sense (citta) will respond by becoming more settled and bright. Unifying the mind, body and citta in this way is the samadhi process.
|
|
The Karuna Institute
:
Creative Formations - Sankhara
|
|
|
2016-04-29
Proliferation of Planning
47:38
|
|
Shaila Catherine
|
|
|
Shaila Catherine gave this talk on planning tendencies of the mind. Papanca is a Pali term that means proliferation. A lot of our planning is not preparation for action. Rather, it's a form of dukkha: chronic planning may be a manifestation of anxiety, restlessness, worry, or obsessive thinking about "who I will be." Planning is fuel for self-becoming, self-grasping; restless planning perpetuates the fantasy of a future we think we can control or predict, but such future may never happen. Instead of habitually indulging in planning tendencies, we can train our attention to be mindful of life as it actually unfolds. We can thus learn to calm fantasies that distract the mind, let go of expectations, and gradually strengthen concentration to be more fully present. We can also curb the tendency to become lost in imagined scenarios of hope and fear about life's events.
|
|
Insight Meditation South Bay - Silicon Valley
|
|
|
2016-03-24
"Sacred Activism Part. 2: We Don't Know What We Don't Know"
59:04
|
|
James Baraz
|
|
|
In our response to unsettling news we can easily react with self-righteousness, sure that our "dharmic" view is the "right one" and feeling superior to those who act in ways we don't understand. But the Buddha asked us to put aside any such arrogance. Through genuinely trying to understand another's perspective, we can cultivate true humility for our ignorance of their reality and greater understanding about the thinking behind their actions. Then our response, which might be one of fierce compassion, is not coming from hatred and ill will but from compassion and wisdom.
This talk includes some thoughts on white privilege as well as Andrew Harvey's brilliant audio clip on Sacred Activism.
|
|
Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley
:
IMCB Regular Talks
|
|
|
2016-01-07
Group D Interview 1
66:37
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
1. Noticing subtler states of mind 2. On citta and how we can feel it. Understanding the concept of citta; 3. On investigating states of the citta; 4. On being drawn into objects in the subtle mind; 5. On noting, planning and thinking; 6. On getting overwhelmed with thinking and going into dullness; 7. On forgiveness
|
|
|
2016-01-06
The Measureless States/ The Divine Abidings (the Brahma-viharas)
58:28
|
|
Ajahn Sucitto
|
|
|
metta (good will/ loving kindness –the experience of the lovability of beings), karuna (compassion – sees the vulnerability of beings), mudita (sympathetic joy - experience of the enjoyment of one’s own and others’ good states)and upekkha (equaminity – the ability to be present with the ups and downs of phenomena); the citta has 2 inputs – feelings(from body or mental perception) and associations/ images/ impressions; skillful intention and the associated joy; volition and sustaining volition as a characteristic of the citta; to others as to myself; the citta adopts various clothes, one of which is “me”; the citta is abundant, rich, calm, exhaulted, measureless/ suffusing, free from hostility and ill will; the significance of the metaphors of language; the measureless empathy of the Buddha; “just like me”, we are all like this as a source of the volition; it’s not so much object oriented as cultivating states of mind and freeing the citta from any state of ill will; identifying the signs that lead to the bonding with / settling of the citta and unification of the mind; find one that works for you; the object one chooses to facilitate this is not important; pitfalls and sidetracks to be avoided in the cultivation – the story of other particular people and of the self, thinking of the past and the future ; finding satisfaction and comfort; the wisdom faculty sees it has been identified and sustained and not owned personally
|
|
|
|
