The greatest gift is the
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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

  
2019-05-11 Viriya – The Cultivation of Energy 54:49
Ajahn Sucitto
Energy has to be cultivated as a resource for practice. This process has three stages: gathering, specific application, and the strength that can release obstacles. The thinking mind uses energy but cannot generate it; energy is generated in the heart (citta) and in the body. Apply energy to empty out the negative and unskillful – the good and bright will arise on its own.
2019-05-12 Puja – A Daily Going Forth 11:26
Ajahn Sucitto
Puja provides an occasion to step out of our personal lives. The gesture of offering and dedicating trains citta to open rather than grasp. The unfolding of citta reveals awareness.
2019-05-12 Standing Meditation: Relieving Pressure with Ground and Space 21:40
Ajahn Sucitto
An important theme in mind cultivation is to relieve pressure – mental, emotional, physical. This is done through moderating the quality of ground and space. When these are sensed through the body, citta picks up their signs and relaxes its own pressure.
2019-05-12 Making Use of the Power of Mindfulness 54:40
Ajahn Sucitto
Mindfulness is an empowered awareness that exerts authority over dukkha. Mindfulness doesn’t contract or become agitated by it. Holding steady and curtailing proliferation, it provides the proper laboratory within which wisdom can arise.
2019-05-13 Samādhi – A Step Outside the Personal Footprint 57:01
Ajahn Sucitto
Samādhi is entered into dependent on the ripening of other factors. It gives us a place to stand outside of the personal perspective. The process of stepping out requires meeting the painful and unresolved in the body, then calming and soothing the heart.
2019-05-13 Guided Meditation: Sensitizing to the Direct Experience of the Body 55:21
Ajahn Sucitto
A guided meditation through the Ānāpānasati sutta. Establishing a comfortable, upright posture, incline awareness toward direct experience of the body. Sustain appropriate mindfulness and citta will sensitize to the qualities we call 'body’. This exercise resets the mind, which is then gladdened, steadied and cleared so that insight can develop.
2019-05-14 The Wisdom of Walking and of Sheepdogs 50:26
Ajahn Sucitto
There are 3 kinds of wisdom: discernment, skillful means and realization. Walking meditation and appropriate mindfulness are skillful means for cultivation. Together they bring around a stewarding akin to that of the sheepdog that moves within the flock, not outside it. This results in the deep harmony of samādhi.
2019-05-16 Liberation through Non-Clinging 23:16
Ajahn Sucitto
Our reality is assembled from selected material that comes through the sense bases. As a result of craving and clinging, consciousness lands on particularly poignant material and continues the cycle of becoming and rebirth. Citta can be trained to handle material with dispassion rather than craving, awareness rather than clinging. The release of consciousness can be known.
2019-05-16 The Person Doesn’t Stop Clinging 59:04
Ajahn Sucitto
Clinging can’t be dealt with by the person. Meet it instead in the body where it manifests as stuck or numb places. Appropriate attention and the rhythm of breathing encourage constricted places to release, smoothing out the entire bodily field.
2019-05-17 Standing Meditation: Balance Is Conducive to Release 17:55
Ajahn Sucitto
The balance required in standing supports an uncontracted body. Lengthening, widening and deepening the somatic field, discordant energies, which may manifest as troubled moods, thoughts or impressions, can be ventilated and released.
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