Ajahn Sucitto's most recent Dharma talks (Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center)

(Gaia House) Understanding the aggregates allows us to see our world is a tangled web of conditions that needs untangling not tearing.

(Gaia House) We use puja to exercise and develop our heart quality of honouring and respecting.

(Gaia House) We use our practice for understanding the direct and intimate experience. This experience cannot be predicted, imposed or demanded, but it arises, offering itself for our careful attention.

(Gaia House) The initial disorientation of entering a retreat is useful. It reveals how familiarity breeds stagnation, blinding us to the deeper reality and vitality of being alive.

(Hartridge Monestary) Our life is the ever-changing experience of ourselves and the world around us - internally and externally. Cultivating goodwill provides stability for piloting this interaction.

(Moulin de Chaves) Forms and our responses to them are always arising and passing away, including the form called "retreat". The learning that comes from using these forms is independent of these changes. It requires our tenacity.

(Moulin de Chaves) Questions are précised - 00:15 Q1 What’s the difference between QiGong and standing meditation? 02:34 Q2 Is there a specific QiGong for meditation? 03:00 Q3 What is the proper balance between sitting, standing and walking? 04:49 Q4 Can you speak more about the forms of knowing described in the satipatanna sutta? 20:38 Q5 What’s a helpful sequence of steps to take in a meditation?28:16 Q6 I find a lot of energy goes into the head when I meditate. What do you suggest? 30:20 Q7 Normally I find in my meditation there is a subtle feeling of pushing or trying. If that is acknowledged there is more of a sense of flowing and playfulness. How can I cultivate this more consistently? 33:36 Q8 I had a very nice walking meditation experience with gratitude and opening. Then there were feelings of fragility and vulnerability. What can you advise? 36:01 Q9 I find myself getting very frozen or locked when I go into my job responsibilities. What’s happening here? 39:19 Q10 We talk about safety and feeling secure. I think this attachment is not the same as the attachment we talks about in Buddhism. What do you think?

(Moulin de Chaves)

(Moulin de Chaves) Centring ourselves in the middle way, between extremes of indulgence or denial allows us to observe and moderate our responses to sense phenomena, especially thought.

(Moulin de Chaves) Questions précised – 00:09 Q1 What is energy? 23:02 Q2 I get involuntary shaking sometimes in meditation. If I focus on the skin it helps to dissolve this. What is this please? 28:31 Q3 Tuning into my body I find tension from unreleased aggression and images that are not always pleasant. What do you suggest? 32:44 Q 4 Sometimes I experience dropping out of identification into an open clear spacious presence. It mostly lasts only half a second and then I get pulled back into self-identification. How can I make it longer or more permanent? 34:58 Q5 Don’t meditation and attentive awareness stimulate and arouse? Don’t they sometimes arouse supportive activation of the heart and spirit? I find sometimes this is a bit of a strain or tiring because I feel in the grip of it. 36:55 Q6 What nourishes the daily practice on your own? Regarding daily offerings, what are some examples of that? 43:07 Q7 Can you speak about the value of renunciation? 44:47 Q8 What should one do with one’s talents? Excelling involves competition for leader ship roles and in that the moral compass gets bent.