Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley)

(Cittaviveka) The fundamental citta sense is an ethical sense. We try to encourage that with precepts. This is how we align ourselves to citta.

(Cittaviveka) Introduction to online format and schedule, encouragements for how to practice and make the most of these circumstances.

(Cittaviveka) Purification of mind is not just spiritual jargon but necessary for happiness. No matter how gross or subtle, our speech, mental intentions and bodily actions affect us. Training and cleaning citta involves bringing uplifting qualities to mind and refraining from contracting to the unpleasant. This is how our kamma can begin to change.

(Dharma College) Can you comment on the other 3 foundations of mindfulness aside from body; is ‘heart-mind’ the translation for citta; is kamma self-perpetuating; please say more about tendency of untrained mind to outflow and how to reverse them; differentiate interdependency and toxic co-dependency in relationships; please explain mindful internally, externally, and both; please speak about how we can manage fear in this time of Corona virus; what is meant by ‘citta is released’; how do we work with aversion, like chemical sensitivity; what is the difference between citta as direct knowing and citta as learning; can you speak more about cleaning out the citta?

(Dharma College) With mindfulness of body, we have a place where we can withdraw from the constructed world and come into direct experience. The body acts as a giant sense organ – feeling, sensing, open to it all. The body can clean encumbrances we would otherwise carry around with us.

(Bodhi College) Is citta/mindfulness always present; who is attending to the citta; where does citta’s luminosity land; eyes opened or closed in meditation; thinking during discernment; use of cooling and warming in relation to what’s arising.

(Bodhi College) Citta can have sore spots, particularly volatile reactions that spin it out into planning. There’s the possibility of not being in that compulsive grip, of turning to the deathless element. Citta can be trained to withdraw into its own stillness, its own knowing.

(Bodhi College) Begin by remembering the value of calm and insight. Place attention carefully at the point of contact impression. Softening and widening so the impressions don’t stick. Let them roll off like beads of water.

(Bodhi College) Citta is the still point in all the movement, tangle and impact. It’s hard to recognize, but body offers a reference point – the sense of presence. Yoniso manasikara, careful attention, trims the flood of experience to a summary message of what’s contacting you. Body can then be used to discharge the push of the aggregates.

(Bodhi College) Relationship between citta, mano and viññāna; why doesn’t citta appear in the chain of dependent co-arising; what is samudayo; the nature of contact and perception conditioning feeling; how can one prepare for death; skills and developments of the mano function and how that mixes in with citta; helping other people; bubbling energy in meditation; limiting external impingements on citta in householder life.