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Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Gaia House)
Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Gaia House) episodes
- Ajahn Sucitto: Care for the Mind – It’s Your Home(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) Whatever we incline our minds toward will affect us. Where do I want to give my attention? Where do I want to commit my time? These are helpful reflections. The mind is our home. Practicing with themes of restraint, mindfulness and careful attention, we have a chance to brighten and purify it.57 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: The Key to Standing Meditation: Balance(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) If the back is not yet strong enough to sustain the sitting posture, standing offers relief. The feet, legs and ground sustain the upright posture so shoulders and upper body can relax. The key reference is balance.24 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Skillful Placement of the Mind(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) Beginning our day, we realize the potential of the mind for confusion or clarity. We need to be quick to steer the mind towards the skillful. In puja we raise up skillful qualities of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha as images and perceptions. This establishes a tone of brightness, persistence and open-heartedness.39 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: How to Settle and Calm(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) When the heart can’t access its own centeredness and stability, the experience of insecurity and discomfort results. We can intentionally introduce skillful thoughts and perceptions to settle and calm the heart.44 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: The Path to Liberation Is through Direct Experience(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) There are two modes of experience, conceived and direct. Conceived experience keeps us stuck in the endless cycle of saṃsara. The way out is through direct experience. Practice with sensing the direct experience of body.54 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Puja: A Purification Process(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) Puja is more than just thinking and recollecting. It’s very much an embodied, vocalized, participatory practice. You don’t really think about puja, you do it. In the doing of it there’s a particular energy, a collective harmony and a collective action that has purification effects.1 hr 17 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Preparing the Heart and Mind for Practice(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) An explanation of the opening rituals: what offering respect to the Triple Gem means; what the shrine offerings represent; how the precepts support our intention to train. Closes with the exhortation to make an effort with friendliness.1 hr 4 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Integrity Leads to Awakening(Cittaviveka) With reference to AN10:61, this teaching reviews the nutriments that result in ignorance, and the nutriments that result in true knowledge and liberation. For the latter, it starts with a person of integrity, with kalyanamitta. We all model something to each other. Cultivating purity of mind, thought, intention, speech, action is then not only for our welfare, but for the welfare of others.55 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Approach to Samadhi and Its Benefits(Cittaviveka) Intention is conditioned to move forward, to move to the next thing. But the encouragement here is to moderate one’s citta – volitional tendencies. Recollect the skillful, linger and deepen into the feeling of it until the mind is gladdened, settled, brought to singularity. There is always more to do on the conditioned level – taking time to store up the good in this way should not be neglected.39 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Sweeping the Path(Cittaviveka) Like dust, defilements creep into the mind and build up. We live in a dusty world, it’s not a personal failing. The normal response is to be vigilant about sweeping – sustain mindfulness. Persistence, energy, and right attitude are required.30 min
About Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Gaia House)
From the publisher's feed
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.
Sitting in a field of fifty to eighty people really starts my mind sparking. Since I don't prepare my talks ahead of time, I find myself listening to what I'm saying along with everyone else. This leaves a lot of room for the Dhamma to come up. Just having eighty people listening to me is enough to engage me, stimulate me, and create a nice flow of energy. The actual process of teaching evokes ideas that even I did not realize were being held somewhere in my mind.
Different teaching situations offer their own unique value. In retreat, you are able to build a cohesive and comprehensive body of the teachings. When people are not on retreat and come for one session, it opens a different window. They are more spontaneous and I'm given the chance to contact them in ways that are closer to their "daily-life mind." This brings up surprises and interesting opportunities for me to learn even more.
I'm continually struck by how important it is to establish a foundation of morality, commitment, and a sense of personal values for the Vipassana teachings to rest upon. Personal values have to be more than ideas. They have to actually work for us, to be genuinely felt in our lives. We can't bluff our way into insight. The investigative path is an intimate experience that empowers our individuality in a way that is not egocentric. Vipassana encourages transpersonal individuality rather than ego enhancement. It allow for a spacious authenticity to replace a defended personality.
I normally incorporate Qi Gong instruction in my retreats. They are not suitable as audio files but you can watch the nine videos here: https://tinyurl.com/Sucitto-qigong