Category: Audio Talks

Aspiration drives the vehicle

Chithurst Buddhist Monastery

Ajahn Sucitto

Day 3 – Well Being is the Shape of the Heart – An Online Retreat

Shape 5 Aspiration Drives the Vehicle (50:55) 17 Jan 2022

We’re looking for the end of suffering, for the possibility of bringing forth what’s good. This is the realm of citta, it wishes to do good. This body is just a tool, to do good deeds with, to work with this person, rather than being it. It’s a vehicle to bring forth the good, the true, the beautiful. Don’t be deceived by appearances, this is a transformation. Bring forth your aspiration vehicle. 

Shape 6 Q&A

Chithurst Buddhist Monastery

Ajahn Sucitto

Day 3 – Well Being is the Shape of the Heart – An Online Retreat

00:30 Questions about meditation; 16:01 What is awareness of awareness? Difference in mano, manas, citta and viññāṇa; 26:00 How to deal with impatience and restlessness; 30:27 How to know if I’m cultivating well; 31:37 Obsessive compulsive disorder; 36:47 Meditation on the 32 parts of the body; 39:54 When thoughts stop and fade away; 41:10 How to deal with death and loss; 43:20 Standing meditation; 45:02 Easier to recognize some feelings but not others; 48:42 Conditionality, saṇkhāra and the aggregates.

Attend to the Heart Tones

Chithurst Buddhist Monastery

Ajahn Sucitto

Day 4 – Well Being is the Shape of the Heart – An Online Retreat

When your heart becomes buried under thought, or you can’t manage what’s happening, then you need your body to bring you back. Body provides the steadying effect that allows the heart to come out. The other approach is through kindness, the ability to maintain presence, pausing and lingering whilst waiting for the heart’s response. This is how we begin to put aside the reactions and compulsiveness, and find our way out of the tangled web of confusion and distraction. 

Q&A 18 Jan 2022 (Day 4)

Chithurst Buddhist Monastery

Ajahn Sucitto

Day 4 – Well Being is the Shape of the Heart – An Online Retreat

Q&A (41:14) 18 Jan 2022

00:06 Mind in body or body in mind; 01:31 Citta voice and thinking mind voice – how to bring them together; 03:12 Mind storm leads to confusion, compulsive thoughts; 05:51 Sleeplessness, especially accompanied with anxiety; 08:02 how to ensure qualities like love are not coming from self-centeredness or craving; 11:09 Fear around upcoming surgery; 13:34 Losing the balance of mind when overcome with pain; 20:22 Others means of practice in addition to meditation; 21:59 Practicing meditation with the aim of attaining jhānas; 27:04 Getting a sense of pīti during meditation; 34:55 If there’s no self who inherits the karmic residues from past lives; 36:51 discernment vs judgment.