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Retreat Dharma Talks at Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge

The Touch of Dhamma - May 2019 at IMS - Forest Refuge

2019-05-01 (31 days) Insight Meditation Society - Forest Refuge

  
2019-05-05 Standing Meditation: Balance and Alignment Enable Letting Go 41:38
Ajahn Sucitto
A guided meditation to establish a balanced upright posture upon which the rest of the body can relax and let go. It may not do so quickly, so be patient with how the body actually is, always attending with a mind of sympathy and goodwill.
2019-05-05 Intention Is Primary, Attention Is Secondary 51:41
Ajahn Sucitto
Attention forms a focus that is by definition, only a part of the whole field (especially the visual focus). So if a ‘watchful’ focus is making your practice tense and try, relax attention and cultivate intention – it covers it all. Intention has a certain motivation, it steers attention. The intention for freedom from stress and pain is what citta is looking for.
2019-05-06 Standing Meditation: Appropriate Intentions and Attitudes 24:05
Ajahn Sucitto
Scanning over the body we are appropriately sensitive, naming and lingering with awareness. There’s a certain sensitive touch and the body responds with warmth and subtle energy. It’s a matter of placing attention with the right intention.
2019-05-06 Storing Up the Good 55:54
Ajahn Sucitto
Notice what one’s citta stores and brings out at potent moments. We tend to store the negative, and that which is most familiar becomes myself. Why not store the good? Store up qualities of the brahmavihāras – goodwill, compassion, gladness & equanimity – as energy in the body. These energetic effects are a resource for your long-lasting welfare.
2019-05-07 Standing Meditation: Restraining the Mind So the Body Can Speak 22:51
Ajahn Sucitto
Placing one’s attention carefully and repeatedly into embodiment, listen to what manifests as body. Make the shift from conceiving of body to felt knowledge, from regarding body to being body. Clearing away what’s not needed and inviting what’s important, let the body speak and hear itself.
2019-05-07 Free Your Inner Dog 60:42
Ajahn Sucitto
We’re endowed with 3 kinds of intelligence: bodily, heart and verbal/thinking. The priority given to the thinking mind has numbed and shut down the body and heart. We train in direct knowing and primary sympathy to reawaken our deep intelligences.
2019-05-09 Don’t Take Saṁsāra Personally 52:32
Ajahn Sucitto
The 5 indriya are spiritual faculties that become activated by feeling them in the body. Starting with faith –the pivotal faculty for coming out of the personal and sensory realm – and culminating in wisdom – the ability to discern skillful from unskillful, non-stress from stress – these 5 indriya work to release the mind from the pressure of identity.
2019-05-10 Standing Meditation: Contemplate Inner and Outer Space 23:13
Ajahn Sucitto
Sensing the space beyond the skin boundary, and the space felt ‘within’ the body. The two can blend. In this way, they facilitate our experience of breathing.
2019-05-10 Wisdom as Know-How 55:45
Ajahn Sucitto
Wisdom is the know-how faculty that discerns suffering and its end. It knows how the 3 intelligences (verbal, emotional, bodily) can work together to bring about the stilling of saṇkhāras. From it noble knowledge – realization – arises.
2019-05-10 Training in Direct Knowing 22:29
Ajahn Sucitto
Sati – mindfulness – is only mentioned once in the Ānāpānasati sutta. ‘Directly feeling and knowing’ – pajānati – is the mode of practice. When we’ve attuned to this, we move to ‘training’. This phase of ānāpānasati begins with training in deeper sensitivity of the entire body.
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