As a monk, I bring a strong commitment, along with the renunciate flavor, to the classic Buddhist teachings. I play with ideas, with humor and a current way of expressing the teachings, but I don't dilute them.
Sitting in a field of fifty to eighty people really starts my mind sparking. Since I don't prepare my talks ahead of time, I find myself listening to what I'm saying along with everyone else. This leaves a lot of room for the Dhamma to come up. Just having eighty people listening to me is enough to engage me, stimulate me, and create a nice flow of energy. The actual process of teaching evokes ideas that even I did not realize were being held somewhere in my mind.
Different teaching situations offer their own unique value. In retreat, you are able to build a cohesive and comprehensive body of the teachings. When people are not on retreat and come for one session, it opens a different window. They are more spontaneous and I'm given the chance to contact them in ways that are closer to their "daily-life mind." This brings up surprises and interesting opportunities for me to learn even more.
I'm continually struck by how important it is to establish a foundation of morality, commitment, and a sense of personal values for the Vipassana teachings to rest upon. Personal values have to be more than ideas. They have to actually work for us, to be genuinely felt in our lives. We can't bluff our way into insight. The investigative path is an intimate experience that empowers our individuality in a way that is not egocentric. Vipassana encourages transpersonal individuality rather than ego enhancement. It allow for a spacious authenticity to replace a defended personality.
Q1: You seem to be talking about citta as a persisting permanent thing not as arising every split second. Any comments? 11:34 Q2: How can I deal with not fully maintaining Buddhist standards after the retreat? 17:27 Q3: You said: Keep warming what can be warmed and the things that can't release yet ... it's not ready. Could you elaborate more on this please? 24:08 Q4: You wrote a book called Unseating the Inner Tyrant. The critic consumes a lot of energy. How do you restore that energy after a rage? Is there a shorter path to finding balance? 32:59 Q5: There's a lot of fear in my citta. How come? 34:46 Q6: I was afraid of coming to this retreat, and now I'm afraid of going out. 38:16 Q7: What is the relationship between tanha, craving, as the fundamental cause of dukkha and the three root kelasa, defilements, based on the scriptures and or their experience for interpretation? 47:51 Q 8: What is the effect of serious illness physical and psychological on the citta? Can they limit or make it impossible to take care of the citta?
Ajahn explores dukkha and the end of dukkha and the role of the 7 enlightenment factors, shifts of energy, identity and sabotage programs, disengagement/viveka, dispassion/viraga, cessation/nirodha.
Q1 If I remember it well citta follows moving, shifting energy. How can we feel moving energy? Is it the feeling of the breath or sound? What is non-moving energy?
08:37 Q2 what's the difference between virya, translated as energy, and citta energy?
12:12 Q3 You don't seem to use the word awareness which is often used to denote the knowing of something. Is there a connection between the felt energy and awareness?
28:28 Q4 How do you reconcile the fire of an animated heart with Buddhism's perfume of disengagement and dispassion?
32:36 Q5 how can sensation and the sequence that leads to it be described in a subtle energy approach?
43:43 Q6 What's the difference between vedana and emotion?
44:48 Q7 Sadness, sorrow, fear, joy. Are the emotions or more fixed states?
49:20 Q8 Observing the breath seems quite important, but as soon as I focus on the breath it gets forced and heavy. Do you have any advice on observing the natural breath without interfering?
52:17 Q9 What does it mean when you say the breathing is a messenger? What is the message?
Q1 Can it be that Qi Gong releases long forgotten memories?
06:40 Q2 If everything is empty, who or what dies and what is reborn if rebirth is not only a concept?
16:19 Q3 Does the Buddhist path result in the loss of loved ones because they're not on that path. For example partner, family, friends? Is there a way to have both? I feel that one side goes at the cost of the other.
20:14 Q4 I've been feeling quite bored sometimes today. How do you recommend to deal with this phenomenon? How could it be explained from a Buddhist point of view?
27:13 Q5 When I'm meditating sitting down, I sometimes feel that I'm losing the perception of a three-dimensional space. I can still feel my body but I don't feel like there's an up or a down or left or right. Is this something common?
