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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: The Practice of Inclusivity(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.55 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 23 Closing Exhortation: Being Is First, Doing Is Second(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.28 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 22 The Comfort Place Is Here(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.58 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 19 Careful Thinking to Be Cultivated for Wisdom and Release(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.38 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 21 Q&A(Madison Insight Meditation Group) Working with sexual energy (0:08); social justice in line with Dhamma (15:20); mindfulness, thinking, speaking & listening (35:03)1 hr 2 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 20 Wisdom: Detox for the Heart(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.1 hr
- Ajahn Sucitto: 18 Appropriate Attention: Comfortably Held rather than Witnessed(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.58 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 16 Right Effort: How to Strive without Getting a Hernia(Madison Insight Meditation Group) The Buddha crossed the floods of ignorance, sensuality and becoming by not halting and not straining. The right effort of finding ground in the body is a means for balancing and moderating energy and effort.56 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 17 Walking Instructions: Staying in Flow(Madison Insight Meditation Group) As we walk, we’re moving through the aggregates, through the field of mind as it opens with its senses of urgency, discord, worry. Sustain mobile mindfulness, walking through your psychological and emotional ‘weather’.5 min
- Ajahn Sucitto: 15 Q&A: I Don’t Answer Questions I Respond to People(Madison Insight Meditation Group) Ajahn Sucitto reflects on questions posed about breathing, how to engage with the felt sense, heedfulness vs mindfulness, metta practice and cultivating an open heart1 hr 8 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