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Retreat Dharma Talks
at Bodhi College
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Breathing to Liberation (Ānāpāṇasati)
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| Mindfulness of breathing is the most thorough system for meditation that the Buddha taught– he used it for his own awakening and described at as being ‘of great benefit, of great fruit’.
In this retreat, Ajahn Sucitto will present the practice as a guide through the three-fold conditioning force (saṇkhāra) of body, thought and heart. These forces and their programs generate the conditions that embed the heart in saṃsāra, and yet if trained, lead to liberation.
The retreat will focus on the texts of the Ānāpāṇasati sutta (M.118) and also the Ānāpāṇasati saṃyutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya. |
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2021-11-22 (5 days)
Bodhi College
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2021-11-24
Q&A
34:29
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:11 Feeling dizzy with QiGong; 00:49 Difference between calming mental activity and calming mind; 14:33 How to calm bodily activities with searing bodily pain; 16:29 Do we work sequentially on calming mental, then bodily formations, or together; 18:09 Examples of ‘accept not adopt’ particularly around past trauma; 21:04 Q6 When the hindrances calm down, what else is there to be found as citta saṇkhāra? 22:56 What does vicāra mean; 26:09 In-breath is short and painful when trying to elongate; 28:25 Should I try to smooth out bumpy breathing; 30:18 Meditative experience in terms of this social existence.
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2021-11-24
Guided meditation – The craft of meditation
29:04
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Settling into direct experience, finding a stable place within the constant tidal wave of phenomena arising. Disengaging, carefully attending. It’s a craft, feeling out how this form is best sustained, smoothed out, appreciated, lingered in. This is the craft of meditation.
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2021-11-24
Q&A Saṇkhāra, self, khamma, khanda
39:39
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:48 You said, ‘I’m not a person who worries a lot, but a worry that persons too much.’ Can you say more? 02:07 I’m not clear about the term ‘volition’; 31:32 Are the suttas prescriptive (something to do) or descriptive (something that will happen anyway); 34:03 How to calm the bodily formation; 36:30 How to contemplate impermanence, dispassion, cessation and letting go?
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2021-11-25
Time, craving and where they stop
51:03
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Your intimate environment is not about time, it’s about kamma. Enter into this embodied world with patience, resolution, goodwill and mindfulness, holding it steadily. There’s an aware intelligence that gets stronger and wiser when you can let go of the stories; it will work for your welfare.
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2021-11-25
Jhāna
56:48
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Jhāna is a condition that supports getting out of the conditioned realm. It gives the mind enough stability to step out of time and enough happiness to step out of the pull of sense pleasure. It makes turning away, nibbida, possible leaving an experience of something open, measureless, where the heart feels freedom from stress, freedom from pressure.
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2021-11-25
Guided meditation - Gladdening the heart
38:37
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Tuning into where gladness is can be approached from different ways. One can recollect people or events that are gladdening, or one can tune into the energy of gladness that is felt in the body. Linger in its effects, the brightening, lifting quality that is agreeable.
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2021-11-25
Q&A
23:17
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00: How to suffuse; 04:40 Placing and sensing the thinking mind; 07:14 Does Ānāpānasati help prepare us for end of civilization; 08:42 Nimittas; 10:01 When one area of body is not suffused; 11:25 How can we suffuse pīti/sukha? 13:00 Softening the process of enquiring; 15:26 Generating joy with chronic pain and vicious personal circumstances; 18:17 Blockages make nostril breathing difficult; 21:24 Can you speak about death?
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2021-11-25
Q&A
33:13
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:12 Dispassion; 03:45 How do dispassion, disengagement and relinquishment reconcile with activism; 12:39 Body time versus clock time; 15:23 How should I teach mindfulness of breathing; 17:42 Joy and poignant sadness; 19:38 What is one then to be sensitive to in the third stage of the feeling tetrad; 25:55 Could you say that the citta is the deathless?
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2021-11-26
Standing meditation - Unified energy
52:51
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Ajahn Sucitto
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Practicing in standing posture, it’s much easier to feel the whole body as an undivided object. Certain things then become apparent – an unbroken unity, an energy. Stay in your energy body as agitations well up, are received, and then dissolve – because they’re energy. This is the development of true insight, to know phenomena is changeable. Therefore one becomes dispassionate towards them.
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