Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Gaia House)

(New York Insight Meditation Center) Ajahn Sucitto provides an overview of Pāli pronunciation to aid with chanting. [5:00 Begin Morning Chanting]

(New York Insight Meditation Center) We can use pūjā and chanting as a means for connecting with the heart in a meaningful way, to recollect values in a slowed down process of mind: What am I rising up to? Inclining towards? What’s important for me? The Buddhist convention is to recollect the Triple Gem – drop below personhood to something more fundamental and universal.

(New York Insight Meditation Center) Rather than rely on a system, cultivate an attitude towards practice. Systems have uses, but can eventually curtail what we’re trying to drop into. Part of the theme of this retreat is about recognizing some of the stressful systems that get built into our minds around speed and progress – and awakening out of them. [24:06 Begin Guided Meditation] Establishing Ground and Space through Breathing: We can use the body as a channel to settle the mind. Use the out-breath to ground, use the in-breath to lift. These two together give you a form with a distinct foundation and uprightness to it.

(Cambridge Insight Meditation Center) Ajahn Sucitto describes how our external and internal worlds come to be built upon exclusion. He encourages us to give up the exhausting endeavor of excluding the uncomfortable and to meet the suffering of the 1st Noble Truth instead. Suffering is met and released through embodied presence with all that arises.

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) As soon as something comes to mind, the impulse is to do something about it. This is just blind. The most important piece is be something first. It shouldn’t take that long, just 10 seconds. Even if being something is being aware of confusion, aware of dukkha, drop into the center of your reactivity. Then awakened intelligence has the possibility to arise in the pause.

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) The end of retreat provides the occasion to experience endings and separation. Check the tendency to rush into the future, the desire to get out of the uncomfortable and move towards the comfort zone. These boundaries of entering something unknown are important places to pause and notice what’s happening. The comfort place is here, don’t leave it. Feel the disturbances, and meet them with mindful and loving acceptance.

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) One of the roles of wisdom is to continually check the toxic influences and open to what is here naturally. The unconditioned can be found through wise reflection and handling of the uncertain and unresolvable nature of conditioned experience. When we no longer resist it or feel agitated by it, the mind is released. The mind released shines in its own luminosity and that radiance gives the heart back its strength.

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) Used wisely thinking supports liberation. Through wise reflection we begin to understand the views and attitudes that give rise to afflictive thinking. But through patiently resisting acting on these creations, it’s possible to gain authority over one’s mind, rather than be caught in worldly currents.

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) Working with sexual energy (0:08); social justice in line with Dhamma (15:20); mindfulness, thinking, speaking & listening (35:03)

(Madison Insight Meditation Group) The way we direct and hold attention either regenerates afflictive self-forming tendencies or decreases them. By relaxing attention and taking in qualities that give rise to ease and gladness, the body is more comfortable and the mind is happy.