Abhayagiri Talks

As we engage with the world, sometimes we do good things, and sometimes not. Therefore in this Dhamma talk, Ajahn Karuṇadhammo follows the vein of ‘returning to the basics’ of mindfulness and clear-comprehension, drawing from the Gotami Sutta (AN 8.53) to give us guiding principles for continually reflecting on our actions and their results. This talk was offered on March 27, 2017, at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

With the retreat ending and the monastery becoming more active, Luang Por puts a plug in for the little things; specifically, mindfulness of breathing (Ānāpānasati), which can be both our vehicle and guide in our spiritual path. Noting our capacity to complicate even the smallest things, he uses the suttas and various images to reveal the utter simplicity and naturalness of this practice which, as the Buddha said, “brings the seven factors for awakening to their culmination”. This talk was offered on March 25, 2017, at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

With the end of the winter retreat coming near, Ajahn Jotipālo reflects on his appreciations and memories of the retreat, calling attention to the significance of being able to serve and sit a 3-month retreat. He also reflects on Bhikkhu Bodhi’s temporary stay at Abhayagiri and his parting advice to dhamma practitioners on having realistic (and helpful) ideals, keeping an eye on the goal, developing the practical skills of the path, having patience in practice, and cultivating spiritual friendship. This talk was offered on March 20, 2017 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Just as Winnie-The-Pooh can’t resist his honey, many of us humans find it difficult to turn away from the pleasures of gratification and becoming. Faced with the prospect (or word) of renunciation, we may fear a joyless life, or a life of ‘missing out’. However, in this Dhamma talk, Ajahn Pasanno encourages us to challenge our preconceived notions of renunciation which paint it as an act of denial or pessimism, and he reminds us that it’s a pāramī, a spiritual quality which moves away from suffering and deluded conceptions of our experience and instead moves toward an unconditioned well-being. This talk was offered on March 18, 2017 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Being humans, we have a variety of ways to construct identities – be it through our skills or habits or dispositions – and we go about in the world, doing what we can to keep those identities alive. This is stressful. In this Dhamma talk, Ajahn Karuṇadhammo reflects on our capacity to go deeper than our constructed and superficial personalities, using the precepts and mindfulness of the body as tools to not only experience states of peace, but to also understand the way our defilements rob us of that peace – that is, the peace of the kusala-citta, or ‘wholesome mind’. He reminds us that by continually applying effort to return to wholesome states of mind, they can become stronger and clearer, and we can eventually realize an un-entangled peace and liberated mind which no longer strives to nourish a sense of identity. This talk was offered on March 12, 2017, at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

With the end of the retreat around the corner, Ajahn Pasanno offers the community this talk on appreciating and utilizing the power of Samadhi to attune to our experience and allow the mind to become ‘purified, bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability’, therefore lending itself to clarity and an ability to stay heedful and alert to the comings and goings of the mind, whether they are pleasant or painful – and without getting stuck on methods or a deluded sense of attainment. This talk was offered on March 11, 2017 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Reflecting on Bhikkhu Bodhi’s talk from the previous evening, Luang Por speaks on establishing the two concordant factors of faith and wisdom, and also on nourishing our path with the contemplation of anicca, dukkha, and anatta – the doorways to the three deliverances of mind (vimokkha): signlessness, desirelessness, and emptiness. In opening ourselves up to change, shrinking back from craving, and letting go of I-making and my-making, we move away from what could be called a “Wile E. Coyote lifestyle” and towards both worldly happiness and a transcendent peace. This talk was offered on March 5, 2017 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

On retreat at Abhayagiri for a month, Bhikkhu Bodhi offers the community a teaching on the Alavaka Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn10/sn10.012.piya.html). This brief discourse from the Pali Canon is made up largely of sets of question-and-answer verses which Venerable Bodhi believes contain within them the entire dhamma of the Buddha in a very compressed form, laying out a path to both worldly and world-transcending well-being and happiness. This talk was offered on March 4, 2017 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Ajahn Chah’s image of “still flowing water” has inspired Ajahn Jotipālo for a long time, having once been an avid whitewater kayaker. In this Dhamma talk, he reflects on his past kayaking experiences to illustrate how an investigative mindset nurtured his own personal expertise along with a sharp intuition and perception of stillness while he was in the seemingly chaotic rapids – and how our own efforts in cultivating dhamma-vicaya in concert with the other Seven Factors of Enlightenment can lead us to understand, for ourselves, what Ajahn Chah meant when he spoke of “still flowing water”. This talk was offered on February 25, 2017 at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.

Building upon recent readings and experiences from the day’s alms-round, Ajahn Karuṇadhammo offers us a reflection on the development of mindfulness immersed in the body, bringing us to an area not mentioned often in the west: the 32 parts of the body. Drawing from his own experience in this area of practice, he notes the negative connotations which surround the theme of the unattractive (“asubha”) and dispels them through both humor and down-to-earth clarity, inspiring us all to go beyond the distortions of perception which nourish craving. Thus, Ajahn Karuṇadhammo encourages us to use the perception of asubha to “go against the grain” of our habitual tendencies and build a foundation for liberating insight. This talk was offered on February 19, 2017, at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery.