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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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2021-05-08 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
2021-05-11 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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
2021-05-30 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 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 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.
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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.
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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 – 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 Refuge Mantra Chanting 1:31
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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 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 Chanting - Suffusion with the Divine Abidings (Pāli) 4:57
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-05-31 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
2021-05-31 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.
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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.
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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 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.
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2021-05-31 Steering Thought 24:32
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We need to train and tame thought so we can use it carefully for inquiry and investigation. Steering away from the conceived, find out how citta is being affected. Supported by embodiment and qualities of goodwill and compassion, the tamed, trained thinking mind gives rise to insight – it’s a liberator.
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2021-05-31 Feeling Creates the Person 24:23
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The effect of feeling, agreeable or disagreeable, touches the citta. The practice is not to contract around the resonance, don’t grab the feeling. It’s the clinging reflex that creates the person. Maintain open stable presence – go bigger and wider than the activations – and the grasping lessens.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Day 3 Q&A1 42:27
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How do I know if I have stream entry; how is fasting a benefit for practice; is body contemplation needed, how often; how to live with someone who lacks integrity; sāti and samādhi; experience of rapture during meditation; difficult to see dukkha in sense pleasures; observing eight precepts; keeping ‘not eating after noon’ based on which time zone; issue of entitlement; receiving guidance from a teacher; understanding causes and conditions for clarity.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Morning Chanting, 5 Subjects for Frequent Recollection 8:16
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2021-06-01 Puja - The Sacred 30:09
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In puja we align ourselves to the sacred. It gives our hearts a sense of purpose. Recollection of values and virtues are uplifted and sustained, giving rise to sappurisa – a person of integrity whose actions are for the welfare of all.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 The Three-fold Flood 53:02
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The floods that wash over citta – floods of sensuality, kamma and unknowing – make it unstable, causing it to constantly search outside of itself for an anchor. The training is for citta to sit back in itself – remain embodied and use the tools within its range to gain strength and weaken the underlying programs.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Guided Meditation - Clearing the Body 15:43
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Beginning at the abdomen – the center of the body, the energy center – use a combination of awareness and breathing to open, relax and release areas of the body.
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2021-06-01 Day 3 Q&A2 47:34
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Relationship between manas and citta; excessive sexual images; what is the subtle body; breath as prana/breath of life; heart qualities that shift perception to vitality; opening energy centers; does energy discharge in standing meditation; working with psychological and emotional pain; resentment and anger arise when practicing at home; unlearning addiction to the clock.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Suffusion with the Divine Abidings Chanting (Pāli) 3:55
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2021-06-01 Extending Heart 14:07
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Practice with the gradual extension of the heart. Extend it in terms of goodwill. Include difficult places without withdrawal of warmth, regard or empathy. Without shutting down, allow things to be as they are. Remain open, extend from the center.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-01 Goodwill 38:04
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The practice of recollecting and extending goodwill establishes stability of heart. Bring to mind your allies, warming the heart in response to the inferred hostility it experiences. Repel the ill-will knowing there is something beautiful here to be protected.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Guided Meditation - Breath Energy 42:57
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Puja - Heart Consciousness 38:41
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Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Suffusion with the Divine Abidings Chanting (English) 9:37
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Guided Meditation – Be the Seer 8:42
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Keeping the focus of eye consciousness still and soft, aware of the one who sees. This seer doesn’t speak, it just sees. Notice when mind consciousness begins chattering – nothing to talk about, there’s just the seer.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A1 49:13
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How to relate to afflictive states; thoughts of unwholesome acts arise in meditation; how can I feel safety in my brown body when there is external racism; is the movement of citta saṇkhāra the same as cetana; feels like body grows bigger while meditating; body cells are asking for more oxygen; how to direct energy to peripheral parts of body; remaining with awareness mind while noticing absence of ‘I’; self-consciousness, fear making a mistake and being judged; affected by family’s trauma like citta is haunted.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 The Power of Love 41:31
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The power of lovingkindness is it can nourish and fortify the heart so doesn’t get crushed by the floods. This gives us a platform for life where all phenomena, even the most painful and difficult, can be witnessed and held. It’s just kammic forces playing themselves out – don’t get stuck in that.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Puja – Heart Consciousness 38:41
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Puja is a time of heart, time to check in and find its basis. Images and resonances of virtue, truth, awakening, integrity provide resource and refreshment, and establish intention for how to engage with the sense world. Align sense consciousness to heart consciousness instead of the other way around.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Chanting – Puja and Divine Abidings (English) 9:37
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Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A2 50:15
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Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.
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2021-06-02 Dependent Arising 5:06
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Mindstates, feelings, perceptions are moving, shifting – there’s no single coherent entity in that, yet there’s awareness of that. Maintaining simple open presence, bring your body into harmony, bring your heart into harmony, and the view becomes clear: this is dependent arising.
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2021-06-02 Day 4 Q&A2 50:15
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Shifts of energy and bodily effects: verbal vs. non-verbal insights; distinction between flood (ogha) and outflow (āsava); how to prepare for aging and death; with things that matter when and how to speak up and when to refrain from speech and actions; self and other/regret/family.
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2021-06-02 Healing, Forgiveness and Blessing 17:17
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It’s very important to share the heart, share the blessings with all that arises. One should do this regularly. Let go of the image, let go of the person – don’t dismiss it, relate to it, witnessing with sympathy, extending the heart. Lingering in the steady open presence, get familiar with it, feeling it, resting in it.
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2021-06-03 Day 5 Q&A1 51:17
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Bright pure light which comes up in meditation; dealing with trauma from a kammic standpoint; how to practice with back pain and lack of sleep; if there’s no self who puts forth effort into the 4 right efforts; offering of invitation was not received leaving sourness; when feeling arises from words do I just stay with the feeling or inquire about it; a lot of pain in body and sudden urge to cry; mind first allows phenomena to subside and investigates later; transitioning back into kammic realm from a place of presence is challenging too easily losing mindfulness; difference between citta and manas; compulsive tendency around cleanliness; struggle with breath meditation feeling like I’m controlling it.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Puja – Images of the Sacred 23:11
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The signs in daily life can be sterile, abrasive, rapid – designed for effective organization, not for organic life. Puja is an occasion to shift gears and cultivate signs of simple beauty, warmth, inclusivity. It’s helpful to have an atmospheric dip every day into signs that cause citta to feel like home.
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2021-06-03 Kamma, Signs and Signlessness 56:49
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We can become flooded by signs that carry meaning according to our kammic histories. To move out of the floods of thought, self, other people, let the sign be a reminder. Go to the body, the felt sense, to the place where the personal qualities are subdued and there’s just the qualities of goodwill and patience. Energies shift and release. This is how we clean out embedded kamma.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-03 Day 5 Q&A2 54:25
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Working at our levels but there’s nothing to attain/is citta is inherently pure; how to think about kamma after death; how does being enveloped in compassion feel; after moving energy down into belly deciding to move from samatha to vipassanā; the knower merges with the known and there’s no object left; when beginning to become concentrated I get hijacked into numbness/feeling lost in brahmaviharā; relationship between awareness, citta, mindfulness and the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Guided Meditation - Quietly Witnessing the Kammic Field 5:30
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As you review what’s arising and passing for you, establish balance and continue with non-engagement. It’s just the human citta doing what it does. Awareness, firm and focused, lingering – in that you’ll find a quiet happiness.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Day 6 Q&A1 34:29
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Is citta able to verbalize/understand words; citta’s role in nightmares; differences between hindrances and fetters; is cultivating bhavana or khanti better for burning off defilements; a lot of pain in the body caused movement in meditation disrupting energy; cultivating mētta; alternative healing methods; startled out of the body when bell rings; locating ancestral exclusions in the body; understanding workings of mind from Abhidhamma perspective vs. contemplation of 4 foundations of mindfulness for realizing non-self; accessing solar plexus during meditation; finding firmness when touching into open spaciousness; musician is torn between music and meditation.
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2021-06-04 Puja – Regaining Heart, Regaining Life 42:49
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We throw ourselves away into identities, sources of stress, comparison, separation. Puja is an occasion for returning to citta’s true home – the sacred that includes it all. Make note of what takes you out and what brings you back home – faith, values – and keep them close by.
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2021-06-04 Open Path 46:53
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An encouragement to continue finding the time and occasion to establish presence to be with all that arises. It’s not about getting through the maze of dukkha but gaining the skills and balance that lift you out. It’s the path of the sappurisa, the person of integrity who attunes to practice with all it requires – faith, open center, with the first movement being goodwill.
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2021-06-04 No Beginnings, No Endings, Just Practice 3:03
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On this last day of retreat, mind might be occupied with comings and goings and what’s next. Remember the stabilizing practices that give citta the strength and encouragement to open despite the bewildering nature of things. Don’t be moved by the change of circumstance, every moment is precious.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-04 Day 6 Q&A2 – The Sacred, Body, Self and Other 47:37
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Trying to find triggers and safe space in the midst of health issues that affect nervous system, heart rate and breathing; stiff neck and shoulder muscles keep re-contracting; how to respond to getting so tired; what is the wise and caring response to body; navigating touch and contact skillfully; how can we be heirs to our kamma if there is no self to inherit it; through investigation of qualities of citta clarity and falling away has occurred – how to sustain; the more I see things clearly the more I feel the weight of delusion causing sadness and disgust and feeling of pointlessness for practice; how to approach in and out breath to calm mental activity (citta)/please speak to mindfulness of feeling from the Ānāpānasati Sutta.
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2021-06-04 Inching into Uncertainty - Closing Talk and Chanting 28:02
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A reflection on how this online retreat came together: good people combining their skills towards a wholesome intention. Whatever we embark on has an element of uncertainty and possibility of failure, but the heart doesn’t fail. Stay open, do your practice, and meet the challenges that arise. Best to form a group – it becomes difficult when you feel you’ve got to do it on your own.
Cittaviveka :  Clearing the Floods - Dealing with Internal and External Overload
2021-06-06 Guided Meditation – Establish Puja as Your Abiding Place 14:40
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We can use the occasion of puja to cultivate signs of purity, beauty, liberation. You’ll feel it changes the rhythm of the mind – heart opens, thinking mind slows down and bodily presence wakes up. Anxieties and agitations are held in this open presence, felt in the body, and allowed to pass and dissolve.
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2021-06-06 Not Quite So: Co-Dependent Arising 28:49
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Our apparent reality arises from moods and interpretations that generate the world of time and space, self and other. It’s possible to meet the moods and mental states directly without creating stories or identities until the signs dissolve and only clarity remains. Meditation and engagement are skillful means to understand the dependent arising of our world, of suffering, and of skillful dhammas.
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2021-06-13 Guided Meditation - Bodily Ease 14:51
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Use the three intelligences of heart, mind and body to create a sense of calm and happiness. Body helps restrain mind; heart generates an atmosphere of gentleness and goodwill. Know what’s worth giving attention to for liberation.
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2021-06-13 Sensitivity and Restraint 31:52
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One of the most fundamental requirements in meditation is restraining the mind. Rather than running out, energy can settle and calm. Then one’s effort is neither straining towards some goal, nor enmeshed in agitation. There’s space for sensitivity, receptivity, listening. When the outflows are restrained goodwill, compassion, clarity and wisdom come forth on their own.
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2021-06-13 Stop Running and Your Real Home Appears 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.
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2021-06-17 Restraining the Outflows 58:11
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All the world rests on very simple human emotions – fear, anxiety, loneliness, gratification. We run out because of them, or build walls to protect ourselves from them. Practice with restraint, keep coming back to here, now, knowing, it’s like this. Don’t run out, just return, and the outflows fade on their own.
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2021-06-19 Guided Meditation – Emotional and Bodily Bases 16:49
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The Buddha said that amongst all the bodies, best is the breathing body. Most important is to give emotional support to let the breathing do the work – allowing, wishing, encouraging. This a useful foundation for contemplating the various currents, energies, obsessions that citta has to release.
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2021-06-19 Breathing Intelligence 37:26
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Cultivation of citta is the highest kind of learning we can undertake. The breathing body is our means for learning, for directly experiencing our kammic configurations. It provides a basis so when difficult states arise, citta can remain open and stable, and move through them.
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2021-06-23 Guided Meditation – Staying Present with Experience 52:30
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There are 2 qualities of citta: it is affected and it is knowing, aware. With cultivation, awareness can become much more apparent and encompassing while the affective sense can steady, calm and subside into something still. The process is to go through the body. As the body eases, citta settles and collects into itself – samādhi. Happy, easeful, refreshed.
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2021-06-24 Innate Nobility 55:15
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The world that consciousness presents us as existing within is divided into self and other; this is a source of suffering. Authentic relatedness is needed to realize that there is no fundamental self or other. So we need to establish a relationship with the uncertainty of this that’s harmonious. Stop the topic, experience the energy. If we meet suffering not in terms of me and you, but with awareness of agitated energies, then lovingkindness, compassion and patience naturally arise. The tangle of fear and insecurity that imprisons us dissolves. The citta returns to its innate nobility.
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2021-06-26 Guided Meditation – Acknowledging Dukkha 14:41
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When we try to settle, what we might notice is unsettledness. Rather than go into the topic, recognize the energy. Give attention to places in the body that are non-agitated. Use body and breathing to change the speed of the mind, steady it. Once settled, then dilemmas and unfinished business can be related to with dispassion, compassion, detachment.
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2021-06-26 Q&A 43:16
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Cultivating mental/emotional equilibrium – drowsiness, other people. Energies – how to sense subtle body, body sways in meditation, standing meditation, qigong, kundalini. Do we need goals in life; fear and anxiety; physical pain devoid of mental pain; advice about becoming a nun.
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2021-07-10 How to Use the Body 54:02
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Instructions for establishing an upright, open posture where you can relax and let breathing happen. The body recognizes that. When the body is relaxed and peaceful, mind sees things clearly. Introduction to chanting as a means for expressing our faith and aspirations. This is how to set up a meditation temple in your own body.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Love, Breathing and Life – an Outline 49:10
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An introduction to the theme of the retreat that redefines traditional meanings of love, breathing and life. Breathing provides the foundation from which we can open to circumstance without fighting, without grabbing. And isn’t this what love is? Just staying with the restrictions, not asking for anything, just flowing through. This is what it means to live a meaningful life – to meet and show up for this experience.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Guided Meditation - Deepen and Breathe 34:23
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Begins with standing posture, aligning the posture so muscles can relax deeply. Flows into sitting posture without breaking the deepening process. Energies from the depth rise up and concoct scenarios that carry the flavor of what’s unresolved – passion, despair, worry. Breathe through it, cooling and steadying the energy in your body.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-10 Day 1 Q&A – Common Problems 53:19
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
How to deal with bodily pain; what to do when mind is obsessively thinking; mind goes dull and I keep falling asleep; what to do with weird energies that can happen; I can’t seem to do breath meditation.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Puja – Coming into Uprightness 46:45
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The upright is both an anatomical and psychological reference. It’s from the upright that we deepen, moving through difficult territories without getting hooked, arriving at places of authenticity and clarity. Puja offers an occasion for opening and deepening.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Wholeness and Fragmentation 59:39
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Upright is both a physical and psychological feature. We can feel the balance, and if attention is sustained there, afflictive energies pass through –confusion transmutes into sanity. Because of ignorance we lose touch with wholeness, energy scatters and spills out through the khandas. Return to the wholeness, extend love and gentleness. Linger in skillful perceptions and the heart will reform itself in line with those meanings.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Returning to Surface 15:11
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Whatever arises from the depth, it’s not yourself. It’s citta territory – nothing to fight with, claim or stir yourself up with. Stay with the center, the quality of uprightness and the ground from which it arises.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-11 Day 2 Q&A 52:04
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Questions have been grouped by theme: Breathing; how do we work with the regret; questions around citta; how does piti (rapture) manifest in the body; heart feels like a lump of black coal.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Day 3 Q&A 54:51
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Other people’s suffering; what is meant by ‘non-self’; remaining with love when one feels constricted and out of control; cause of excessive burping; please talk about the perception-feeling saṇkhāra processes; the purpose of sensing space around; body scanning to train the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 The Treasure of Right Speech 15:25
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Speech today tends to be surface babble, it doesn’t go to the depths. One who knows the depths speaks things that are valuable, useful, conducive to harmony. Therefore one looks at speech as a potential treasure, something that can demonstrate love, show that other people matter to me.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Refuge Place 15:01
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From the depth of the heart is a place of refuge. A place you can go with failures, pains, mistakes – and be accepted. A place to put it all down, finish it. Let go of the tangles and snagging that happen at the surface.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Right View of the Domain of Practice 54:47
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How we live on the surface – our lifestyle, speech, actions – generates signs and messages received in the depth. Make an effort to establish right view in your daily life. Mindfulness is then established from that message, not in self-view but in the right territory of lovingkindness, compassion, renunciation.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Guided Meditation – Breathing into Empathic Life 19:53
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Guidance to sense experience at the cellular level, not as a person. Establish the firm welcome of ground and safe benevolent space around. Sensing, with every inhalation is a birth, with every exhalation a complete emptying back into ground. Tuning into the subtle bodily and mental feelings, may this be well.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-12 Day 3 Q&A 58:30
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
How to respond to the energy of craving (taṇhā); how to navigate states of calm; advice for approaching cancer without fighting/setting up a war; how to work with thinking, between suppressing in meditation and reacting while living in the world; encountering doubt after 20 years of practice; how to work with unhappiness/sadness.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Guided Meditation – Open Stability 15:00
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A practice with opening the sense fields while remaining with the upright. Remain in receptive mode – there is the seeing, the seen, the one who sees – not moving out into any of these, staying with undivided wholeness.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Day 4 Q&A 45:24
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How can I love myself; how to deal with loneliness; questions that arise while sitting; gratitude and rejoicing; preventing negative energy coming towards us; in-breath gets stuck at solar plexus; using breathing meditation in standing posture; working with the effects of harmful childhood events; energy can be helpful but isn’t a meditation technique; worry about other people.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Puja – Surveying the Field of Kamma 39:52
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Puja offers the opportunity to survey the field of your mind, your kammic field. Survey it with the eye of a Buddha, with compassion and awareness, not self, just qualities moving around. Remain on the edge, keep your intentions light – sensing, steadying – and let things reveal themselves more fully.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Replenishment 65:06
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Citta can become established on our own or others’ foolish actions, then suffers from depletion, withdrawal of empathy. It doesn’t know how to drink in its own goodness. Use breathing to shift these deep-seated negative formations, suffusing the body with the qualities of the brahmaviharā. Put aside the doing and receive these natural resonances as a source of nourishment and replenishment.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-13 Day 4 Q&A 54:09
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Maintaining mindfulness on sleeping and waking up; relationship between being sensitive and taking things personally; human enhancement and right view; sense is of being a frightened deer – practices for inner sense of security; gathering the good for wandering mindstates.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation – It’s Like This Now 18:10
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Practicing in the upright body, surveying the field, whatever is happening for you, wherever you are, however you are – it’s like this now. Without reacting, denying, fighting or fudging, staying with experience but not in it. That’s the still point. Through that power of this truth, the tide of kamma begins to settle and clarify, and wisdom begins to arise.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Day 5 Q&A 41:05
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Accepting my own aging; emptiness; is taking a stance alignment rather than saṇkhāra; how to deal with conflict mindfully; can our practice become self-centered; how to maintain this in daily life; how to repay kamma/transfer merit for accidentally killing animals; struggling to wake up and meditate; how to work with desire for solitude and concern over isolation/loneliness; how to relate to mother who has long term issue of complaining.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Puja – Being Buddha 40:03
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The nature of puja is it’s a direct participation in Dhamma. Setting aside what is not needed, boundaries of self and circumstance dissolve and there’s just the upright center, receptive. Surveying the field of kamma from this awakened position gives you a direction, a vantage point from which to navigate your day and your meditation.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 The Gift of Realization 56:06
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Realization isn’t something you do, it’s something that arises from beyond yourself. When we stop reacting to the stirrings of our kammic field, stop creating a self, awareness can lift and witness – this is suffering, this is its origin, this is how it ceases. As we begin to wear out these distorted psychologies that make up the self, qualities of happiness, freedom, joy and love become available as a gift.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Day 5 Q&A 52:15
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with Ajahn Sucitto, Willa Thaniya Reid
Difference between wise caution and anxious reaction; use of psychiatric medicines; please condense teachings and instructions for practice; cultivating relationship with gods/celestial beings; commitment to waking up entangled with wanting and striving; transitions in place, experience and practice.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-14 Guided Meditation – Fine Tuning the Postures 5:46
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Advice for specific sāti helpful in each posture. Establishing ground, steadiness and center while keeping awareness wide, allow dhammas to swim by, letting them all go. A certain strengthening effect comes from that.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Puja – A Daily Door to the Sacred 16:32
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The occasion of puja provides a useful link between our inner realities and outer circumstances. As we chant and make offerings, we’re open and receptive to the virtue, values, insights of our depth experience. The body picks up these signs as deep tissue memories, making these qualities available to enrich what we do in the external world.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Guided Meditation – Graduated Expansion 8:12
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Guidance to gradually return to awareness through the sense fields. No pushing, just expanding lightly, integrating the inner domain with your external circumstance in whatever you do next.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid
2021-07-15 Harvesting the field of Dhamma 61:10
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The way to make use of the closure of retreat is to harvest. Standing at the door of the mind, use the body for support to review the stuff of the mind from a balanced place. The upright axis cools the field of reactivity. Witnessing with disengagement, don’t be deceived by what appears internal and external, it’s all happening in the mind.
Cittaviveka :  Love as the Breath of Life - an online retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Willa Thāniyā Reid

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