The Timelessness of Awareness
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Fourteenth Talk). How to use the creations of the mind skillfuly and access which thinking is helpful and which is not.… Read the rest
Big Sunglasses With Eye Balls Falling Out of Your Head
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Fifteenth Talk). Ajahn Viradhammo encourages us to relax our eyes during meditation, explaining a couple ways we can do this, and leading a guided meditation to support this practice.… Read the rest
True Self-Help
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Eighth Talk). Ajahn Viradhammo speaks about Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Liem, analysing several readings to better understand enlightenment experiences and the process of how we suffer.… Read the rest
Making Effort Right Effort
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Residential Non-Retreat 2013 (Ninth Talk). Through a natural process of experimentation and investigation we can gain wisdom and learn how to make effort, right effort. By clearly seeing if an experience is increasing wholesome states and decreasing unwholesome states, we can understand the process of how our minds work with the hindrances and how best to do this with right effort.… Read the rest
Raising Energy Overcoming Dullness
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Tenth Talk). A quick example of how to use the breath to bring energy up in the practice.… Read the rest
How to Handle Thought Q & A
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Eleventh Talk). We deal with thought by changing unskillful perceptions into skillful perceptions. We are trying to figure out how to balance the mind, asking ourselves: “what does the mind need right now?” It might be asubha contemplation, metta meditation, contemplation of space or some other meditation object.
Other questions asked: Is contemplation analytical and therefore not meditation? How does desirelessness relate to meditation?… Read the rest
I Teach Frustration
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Fifth Talk). Ajahn Cha would say: “I teach frustration.” Ajahn Viradhammo explains how he learned in Thailand to frustrate his desires. By going against our natural habits of desire, comfort seeking, and engaging in pleasant distractions, we allow ourselves to see what arises, being aware and observing desire rather than pursuing it. Eventually we learn to go beyond desire and this is done by seeing discomfort/dissatisfaction as simply a condition of mind.… Read the rest
Brahmaviharas Guided Meditation
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Sixth Talk). This guided meditation begins with a talk about this-that conditionality. By questioning whether the mind is in a wholesome or unwholesome state we can more easily understand cause and effect.… Read the rest
Ajahn Chah’s Teachings on Not-Self
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (Seventh Talk). Ajahn Viradhammo reads some of Ajahn Chah’s words on Dhamma and explains how Ajahn Chah taught his disciples about not-self.… Read the rest
Conventional Truth & Liberating Truth
Ajahn Viradhammo. Tisarana Non-Residential Retreat 2013 (First Talk). There is conventional truth which employs a sense of self: me, my life, and social responsibility. And there is liberating truth which looks at life as a stream of consciousness: mental, emotional, and physical phenomena as arising and ceasing within awareness, as simply manifestations of consciousness.… Read the rest