The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Retreat Dharma Talks at Cittaviveka

At Home with the Homeless: Ajahn Sucitto Locked Down

This series of recordings is offered by Ajahn Sucitto as a way to offer connection and encouragement in this time of global lock down.

2020-03-28 (644 days) Cittaviveka

  
‹‹ previous      1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
2020-04-03 Home Movie from the Kuti: Dealing with Isolation 38:16
Ajahn Sucitto
Even in this experience of physical isolation, we’re not exactly separate – we’re always with something. Practicing with the relational sense, we meet everything as it is rather than trying to change it or fix it. From this broad state of awareness, edges and boundaries soften, and the heart connects with lovingkindness, regardless of physical proximity.
2020-04-05 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Protecting Ourselves and Others 30:08
Ajahn Sucitto
By protecting ourselves we protect others. When we protect our own hearts from defensiveness, blame, hostility and stress, we also protect others. We train ourselves through the 4 foundations of mindfulness. *Sutta reference is SN47:19.
2020-04-09 Home Movie from the Kuti: Where and How Are You Going? 35:30
Ajahn Sucitto
We can use this experience of lock down to address the routines and standards that support our daily becoming. The mind is pulled further and further wondering what to do, planning what's next. What to do is stop, rest in the body, maintain deep attention. Consider rituals that nuplug and cut the tide of becoming.
2020-04-12 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The End of Fear 26:17
Ajahn Sucitto
We look for safety and stability in a level of experience that cannot provide it, that’s the source of agitation. In meditation we practice the ability to sustain ungrasping attention around a thought, feeling, situation, and particularly unpleasant feeling. The content will constantly shift, but the relationship to them, awareness, can become the source of stability. *Sutta reference is SN2:17.
2020-04-19 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Skill of Recollection 39:14
Ajahn Sucitto
Recollection is not just thinking about things, it’s associated with the quality of careful attention. Encourage the mind to think slowly, touch the heart and abide in wholesome qualities. In daily life we do the external, but embedded in the ground of the heart is where your basis is. *Sutta reference is AN11:11-12.
2020-04-26 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Way Out of the Flood 35:37
Ajahn Sucitto
Mindfulness based on body is the way out of the mind. From here I can witness feeling rather than dive into it. With wisdom we can come to prefer skillful intention rather than seeking good feeling. When intention is skillful conduct, there is no grasping at results. That feels good! And we are free to act without seeking a result, without becoming. *Sutta reference is AN10:58.
2020-05-03 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: The Gift of Vulnerability 32:03
Ajahn Sucitto
It’s possible to meet suffering with an open heart. If the heart can open to grief, pain and vulnerability, a new view is possible – one beyond the cycle of birth and death. Keep the heart open to Dhamma, rooted in faith and goodwill. This is the Path to the deathless. *Sutta References: Therīgatha 6:2; Samyutta Nikaya 12:23; Samyutta Nikaya 1:10
2020-05-10 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Spiritual Friendship As the Basis for Awakening 35:45
Ajahn Sucitto
We may feel more isolated than ever, but the truth is that we’re always captive in our sensory prisons. The aim is to liberate and open the heart so that qualities beyond sense consciousness can be realized. Key among the factors needed for liberation is kalyāṇamitta – spiritual friendship. *Sutta reference AN9:3
2020-05-17 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Make Your Mind Like Gold 37:49
Ajahn Sucitto
The process of purifying gold can help us understand the nature of mind. Clearing out the turbulences and impurities makes way for what is naturally pure and radiant to come forth. Freed from the hindrances, the mind is pliable, luminous, properly fit for work. *Sutta references: AN5:193; AN3:101-102; SN:46:53; AN6:85
2020-05-24 Dhamma Stream Online Puja: Freeing the Heart from the Whip of ‘Should Be’ 37:55
Ajahn Sucitto
Mind (manas) whips the heart with its interpretations of how things should be, thereby stirring up discontent and agitation. Mind can be placed in service of heart (citta) instead. Citta’s awakened response to the conditioned realm is one of empathy. Holding, soothing, steadying – there is the possibility to experience the clarity and calm of the Buddha rather than the misery that mind creates. *Sutta Nipāta: 721, Dhammapada:134, and M.18
‹‹ previous      1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Creative Commons License