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Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center)
Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center) episodes
- Ajahn Sucitto: Precepts – A Way to Cross the Floods(Cittaviveka) Determining to keep precepts is a way to cross the floods. They help check and restrain urges of gratification, malice and escapism. Coming from a place of ethics and mutuality naturally gives rise to pleasant states of being, giving us an orientation we want to remain with rather than following the immediate pull of inclination.48 min
- 6 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Puja and Chanting(Cittaviveka) Puja means honor or praise. It’s an important gesture to cultivate – the sense of rising up to something beautiful, something worthy. Making offerings, bowing, chanting and meditating are steadying and calming acts that massage the energies of body, heart and mind.49 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Q&A(Cittaviveka) Please explain why you got the COVID vaccine as I am hesitant; can meditation help with IBS; can’t exhale completely because in breath rushes in; does it matter if formal practice/meditation is less; is manas an impediment to citta or can it be used beneficially; how to get over the pain of divorce; how to ask someone to leave a community due to ethical reasons; when desire is abandoned how is avijja eliminated; elaborate on terms samādhi, atammayatā, nibānna.37 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Guided Meditation - Fountain of Feeling(Cittaviveka) The cycle of saṃsara develops from feeling. Perceptions then form that stimulate particular actions that can be stirring, disturbing, exciting. Investigate these from the stillness and stability of presence. What’s needed?18 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Going Forth to the Place of Realization(Cittaviveka) Mind is always searching – in the personal, social and sensory realms – for solidity and satisfaction. But to find this, we must go forth – set aside the virtual world that we compulsively create and come into presence. This is the place of realization, where we meet what arises with the compassion, goodwill and discernment of the heart.55 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: The Power of Presence(Cittaviveka) We seek steadiness and happiness from that which is inherently changing and unsteady – the constructed notions of future, past, myself and others. Withdraw from the tangle, acknowledge without getting involved. When you collect your heart with presence and acknowledge the tangle and the stress, there’s empathy rather than agitation. Good qualities naturally arise from that stable empathetic basis.39 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Guided Meditation - Return to the Basis of Citta(Cittaviveka) Encourage attention to find its way back through the tangle, back to the basis of citta. Sentient, present, withdrawn from the mental landscapes and the personal scenarios. Fully dwelt in, lingered in, citta, in its basis, is happy.14 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Guided Meditation - Realization of Anicca(Cittaviveka) The realization of changeability can be transformational and liberating. When we deepen into presence, we can review the contents of the mind with spaciousness – without identifying with anything, without creating a self. With this quality of relinquishment, wonderful dhammas arise – spaciousness, clarity compassion – the ending of suffering.46 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Enrich Citta to Heal the Person(Cittaviveka) Citta’s awakening intelligence is in its capacity to know and be touched. Rather than trying to change or complain about our situations, embrace the human condition with the qualities of pure citta and let that do the work. Citta is the most important thing – it’s what suffers, what leads and directs us, and what gets liberated.36 min
About Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center)
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