Abhayagiri Talks

What is it that helps the mind become clear, the heart become peaceful? Ajahn Pasanno teaches that it is not the use of speculative thought nor the passive observation of experience. Rather, the Buddha's approach is to cultivate the capacity of the mind for “mindfulness” – the ardent application of effort to recognize and relinquish the hindrances to our awakening. This talk was offered on April 30, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

We are not helpless victims of our unskillful patterns of body, speech, and mind, Ajahn Pasanno tells us. We may have allowed them to become an ordinary part of us, just as we may have allowed the taking of refuges and precepts to become ordinary. But we must find ways to keep the refuges and precepts fresh, for they are an active way out of the ordinary causes of our everyday suffering. This talk was offered on April 29, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

For many years, Iris Landsberg (1949-2014) graced Abhayagiri evening sittings with her beautiful Dhamma talk request. This recording came from Ajahn Amaro's October 18, 2008 talk "Trust in Refuge."

After his 2016 visit to Abhayagiri, Ajahn Sucitto lead a retreat at the Padmasambhava Peace Institute near Cazadero, CA from April 23 to April 30. The talks from this retreat are available for download on the DhammaSeed.org website.

Asked the question, “How do I know if I'm progressing on the path?” Ajahn Pasanno reflects that our practice is an act of uncovering a peaceful inclination of mind that already exists. The way to this uncovering, he teaches, is not in asking, “What am I getting from this practice?” but instead, “What can I let go of?” This talk was offered on April 23, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

People often have the idea that one practices “concentration” to achieve “special meditative states of mind” called jhana, but Ajahn Sucitto points out that in fact jhana is a daily life practice of absorbing into the wholesomeness of nature that leads to the embodiment of samadhi – a unified state of the heart. This talk was offered on April 21, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

In Buddhism the word sadha, usually translated as “faith” does not refer to an unshakeable belief in something. As Ajahn Pasanno explains, sadha is a kind of confidence that works hand in hand with effort, mindfulness, mental development, and discernment to help us find our own way to what is true. This talk was offered on April 16, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Jotipālo uses a metaphor of his preferred method for burning a brush pile to reflect on how to approach one's practice from the details rather than the goal. This talk was offered on April 14, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Asked to speak on the interrelationship of three kinds of meditative practice – metta, vipassana, and samatha – Ajahn Pasanno emphasizes that the Buddha's path has but one goal – liberation from suffering – and all the tools he offered us work together to this end. This talk was offered on April 11, 2016 at Dharma Realm Buddhist University in Ukiah, California.

Ajahn Pasanno offers us a kind of user's guide to the self, drawing a clear distinction between having a self and investing in your self. This talk was offered on April 9, 2016 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.