tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post5384111478895536308..comments2024-03-14T06:26:00.182+00:00Comments on Reflections: Ajahn Sucitto: Off the MapUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-69423353582558551182015-04-14T19:27:27.010+00:002015-04-14T19:27:27.010+00:00Really interesting and helpful to read questions a...Really interesting and helpful to read questions and answers. <br />Would like to recommend one of Ajahn Sucittos talks called 'Energy'. Getting lost in thoughts, feelings and moods I sometimes get totally drained out of energy. http://www.cittaviveka.org/index.php/teaching/audio-talks/87-ajahn-sucitto-energy<br />This talk makes it very clear about the importance to keep mind, body and thought together as a team! Thank you. Wishing you all well.Ylvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14485714778554942419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-60125872300721578542015-04-13T16:36:26.525+00:002015-04-13T16:36:26.525+00:00I have been experimenting with this over the past ...I have been experimenting with this over the past few days. It already is immensely useful. When strong emotions/activity are happening, i focus the awareness there, on the underlying feeling. I discern the activity as pleasurable/not pleasurable, notice the weight/tension in the mind and body. Spread the breath through that gently. Constantly exploring it with a mentality of "ah, it's like this. Such and such feeling is like 'this' ". Noticing when such and such a feeling arises, the body feels like this, the mind feels like this.<br /><br />I am going to stay with thanissaro bikkhu and his fellow monks beginning of May, I will develop this further while I'm there. My first monastery experience, I am looking forward to it. <br /><br />Thank you again, invaluable help! If my understanding is still missing the mark, feel free to delete this; i do not wish to confuse anyone who reads this if it is off base. Juan Gutierrezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14607933810060102684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-37310594994882725052015-04-10T00:02:09.747+00:002015-04-10T00:02:09.747+00:00For further clarification: in terms of practice, o...For further clarification: in terms of practice, one doesn't just drop the topic and go back to the breath ( although this may be useful step at times). What I'm referring to is a process of acknowledging ones thoughts, moods, impulses and energies and through 'deep attention' identifying the underlying mood or energy ( such as anxiety or anger). Then drop the topic, stay with the mood and refer to how that is affecting the body. When you find the bodily effect, you 'breathe through that', i.e. hold the breath-energy and the mind-energy in awareness. A insightful shift will occur by itself.Ajahn Sucittohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17302243600533653954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-72789821396101692072015-04-07T14:58:36.145+00:002015-04-07T14:58:36.145+00:00Thank you so much for your time and help!
I actu...Thank you so much for your time and help! <br /><br />I actually feel like I personally realized this exact thing recently. I realized there is just an awareness i can abide in, separate from the thought faculty of the mind. I can start to see from contact, the mental fermintation begin; the web being spun. I still get pulled away frequently and end up back wandering unaware in thought. But then Sati will kick back in, reminds me to put effort into following the breath with awareness(mindfully). When this lapse of 'the one who knows' happens, transgression occurs. I like Ajahn Lee's method of breath meditation that thanissaro bhikkhu teaches. I find following the breath and body contemplation to be great for strengthening this awareness.<br /> <br /><br />I'll read those blog posts you mentioned. Thank you again Ajahn Sucitto. May you see the wholesome as wholesome and unwholesome as unwholsome.Juan Gutierrezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14607933810060102684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-58651281115889169962015-04-06T21:54:00.040+00:002015-04-06T21:54:00.040+00:00Thank you Juan. It's good to clarify the jargo...Thank you Juan. It's good to clarify the jargon.<br />“Embodied awareness” is an awareness, i.e. a conscious sensitivity, that is in touch with the feelings and energies in the body. Acknowledging and developing this was the great breakthrough that led the samana Gotama to Awakening. Prior to focusing on this, he had cultivated disembodying practices under two teachers, a path that led to formless absorptions, but not to an awareness that integrates the bodily experience in a skilful way. So mindfulness of breathing entails bringing awareness to a bodily process, and noting how the rhythm and subtle energy of breathing spreads a suffusive happiness through the mind. This clears the mind of obstructive moods. Knowledge of this sympathetic relationship between body and mind was largely unknown in the West until William James, a foundational figure in modern psychology noted that strong emotions are accompanied by bodily responses (such as changes in heart-beat, flushes in the skin, tension and so on). Actually a skilled meditator can discern impulses and moods through their effect on the body. This approach to mental phenomena curtails thinking about, judging, repressing or affirming them. One learns how breathing can<br />steady and calm them, and bring about release. From another angle, embodied awareness, using breathing as a tool, can also heighten positive mind-states and cause them to be sustained.<br /><br />This understanding runs through several postings in this blog. For example: Sin, Sex and the Inner Tyrant, ( November 2104) Standing Like A Tree (May 2014) Surface, Depth and Beyond (March 2014)Ajahn Sucittohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17302243600533653954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-7125625779367033722015-04-04T23:54:19.276+00:002015-04-04T23:54:19.276+00:00Thank you so much for writing while you are on ret...Thank you so much for writing while you are on retreat. I have been working through your writings since starting with Kamma and the end of Kamma last year during a class that two of our community mentors here in Sacramento held. Including Rude Awakenings-partly read while on retreat to India and Nepal last year have been finding your words so helpful. They help me see more clearly into the nature of what this mind experiences. You describe so exactly correctly what I experience inside this mind, heart and body. It's very helpful. I wish you very well as you continue you journey. Thank you so much. It is wonderful knowing there is a real live person who is working with this stuff of reality in such a wholesome, honest wayAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17791358272045645714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709844700034298584.post-34290411591757940622015-03-31T20:18:15.462+00:002015-03-31T20:18:15.462+00:00Can you please explain this to me in another way? ...Can you please explain this to me in another way? "If we hold the notions of time and identity in embodied awareness, the undercurrents of regret, anxiety or impatience have no water to churn and they cease."<br /><br />I don't really understand what you mean by holding something in "embodied" awareness. <br /><br />Thank you Venerable Ajahn Sucitto! :)Juan Gutierrezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14607933810060102684noreply@blogger.com