Abhayagiri Talks

Ajahn Pasanno expresses gratitude that the Buddha’s timeless teaching is accessible to us. He encourages us to investigate, reflect upon and see the truth of the Dhamma for ourselves. The proper application of the Dhamma leads to an internal cleansing. Knowing the Dhamma, the true nature of things, can become our refuge.

Addressing a Bangkok audience in English, Ajahn Pasanno recalls some key teachings of Ajahn Buddhadasa and discusses the five khandas as not self. Ajahn Pasanno answers questions on citta and consciousness, mindfulness, and others. This talk was offered on January 4, 2018 at the Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives in Bangkok, Thailand.

Ajahn Pasanno discusses truth discerning awareness (satipanna). We need to cultivate it to see the arising and ceasing of conditions and to understand and relinquish our clinging to the five aggregates of being as an identity.

Ajahn Pasanno traverses the landscape of breath meditation. He begins with simple instructions and then explains how to use mindfulness of breathing with metta practice, body contemplation, and investigation of change, suffering and not self.

Ajahn Pasanno details the four constituents that are necessary to follow the Buddha’s Middle Way path of practice: solitude, dispassion, cessation and relinquishment.

Tan Nisabho discusses the rigors of monastic training and offers creative ways to brighten the mind and keep meditation practice vibrant. This talk was offered on January 24, 2018 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Karunadhammo discusses instructions on how to remove unwholesome, distracting or proliferating thoughts. He focuses on the fourth method which retraces the thought back to its origin. He suggests moving to the affective experience that is feeding the thought or story, and then to see the bare energetic experience in the body.

Ajahn Pasanno describes the recent visit to Thailand by members of the community to attend the celebration of the one hundredth year of Ajahn Chah’s birth.

Ajahn Naniko asks, “Are we going against the stream of the mind’s defilements?” This is what we should be doing in practice. He discusses the five hindrances to meditation and their antidotes which are the four protective meditations: contemplation of the body, metta, death, and the Buddha.

Tan Pesalo discusses the development of communal harmony and the qualities of loving kindness and forgiveness which support it. The development of the brahmaviharas is as important as our insight practice. By cultivating them, our suffering can be lessened and harmony increased.