The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Retreat Dharma Talks at Gaia House

The Indriya: Allies for Liberation

An 11 day in person retreat with Ajahn Sucitto and Laura Bridgman

2022-05-20 (11 days) Gaia House

  
2022-05-25 Sati with other faculties 25:27
Laura Bridgman
The mind is a delicate and responsive instrument. Balancing faith and effort, sati uses gentleness and patience and we learn what is peaceful and natural.
2022-05-25 Q&A 23:45
Ajahn Sucitto, Laura Bridgman
Questions are précised and some are read later into the file to protect participants’ anonymity. 00:00 Q1 Please say more about sankara and their physiological / psychosomatic body links; 18:06 Q2 I have a question about tears borne from love and grieving. How does this fit with equanimity?
2022-05-26 Guided Standing Meditation 42:28
Ajahn Sucitto
Self massage helps body awareness arise. With mental intention, alternately directing and releasing activation energy around the body, we increase connectivity and provide a broad basis for mindfulness.
2022-05-26 Orientation Towards Completion and Ease 60:02
Ajahn Sucitto
Developing facility with the indriya – faith, energy, mindfulness, collectedness and discernment – supports awareness of skilful states flowing and fulfilling themselves within a mindful embodiment.
2022-05-27 The Kindness of Wisdom 51:51
Ajahn Sucitto
Discernment is easily biased by the five aggregates, especially mental constructions such as uncertainty and ‘not quite right yet’. Contemplating citta we can understand suffering rather than adopt a notion of solving it.
2022-05-27 Integrating the Faculties with Meeting Painful Emotion 26:05
Laura Bridgman
We deepen our relationship with the Indriya’s qualities in our body, revealing our normal worldly patterns and finding our center. An experience of jealousy is described as an example.
2022-05-27 Q&A 28:17
Ajahn Sucitto, Laura Bridgman
Questions are précised and some are read later into the file to protect participants’ anonymity. 00:00 Q1 How wide can the space of embracing you spoke of be for people (like prisoners for example) who may not have the present capacity for insight and who seem not ready to face trauma. Perhaps they will never be ready. O1:44 Q2 When and how in meditation and life, should we put boundaries around unhelpful things without a pushing away quality? 06:10 Q3 Could you say more about the relationship between the composed part and the part that’s in disaray as more important than either of the two. 8:52 Q4 Could we hear more about jealousy please and the associated difficult shame reactions. 16:09 Q5 Does any kind of volition disrupt bodily alignment or subtle bodily energies, or can the well instructed person conceive or even act without resultant misalignment?
2022-05-28 Devotional Imaging - Inviting the Indriya (with 30 min meditation) 39:13
Ajahn Sucitto
Sacred images can brighten the mind and allow helpful energies to arise. We can summon the indriya through this means. With devotional practice, we dislodge the self from its center point, revealing the energy of spiritual desire (chanda).
2022-05-28 Crossing the Floods 54:02
Ajahn Sucitto
Ajahn explores the Buddha's famous prescription: 'By not pushing forward and by not standing still, I managed to cross the floods'.
2022-05-28 Suffering is to be Understood 26:12
Laura Bridgman
Understanding suffering is like loosening a tangled ball of threads. The Indriyas help us find balance and navigate even the most subtle mind states that arise.
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