Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
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: The Gentle and Harmonious Tonality of Puja(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) Beginning the day with puja, a certain tonality is established. Not the abrasive, pushy, congested one of modern day, but something beautiful, timeless, gentle and steady. As we enact puja, we establish the Triple Gem as a heart quality that we can sit within. This is our refuge place.16 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Guided Meditation: Heartful Sympathy for All Beings(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) This guided meditation touches into a fundamental quality that arose with the Buddha’s final realization – anukamapa, heartfelt sensitivity and sympathy for the welfare of sentient beings. We practice by generating perceptions and relating directly to the resulting experience.43 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Mind’s Nature Is to Be Happy(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) We live in the sense world, but we don’t have to run out into it. We can see, hear and touch, but keep the heart collected inwardly. This gives a sense of balance and peace, an inner happiness.1 hr 3 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: Make the First Effort of the Day with Wisdom and Persistence(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) Take the opportunity when you begin your day to turn away from unskillful states and start putting down the seeds for skillful states. Committing to precepts and recollecting Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha bring mental firmness. Breathing and chanting bring physical vitality and brightness. This builds up the reserves of wisdom and vitality to sustain you through the day.17 min
- 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: How to Stand Back from the Stream of Mind(Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand) It can be humbling to recognize that we’re not getting the results we’re going for in practice. We cultivate 4 Dhamma factors – motivation, energy, relinquishment & investigation – to understand the stream of mind we keep getting caught in, and to develop the capacity to stand back from it.1 hr 4 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
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