The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
Ajahn Sucitto's Dharma Talks at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies
Ajahn Sucitto
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.
2021-08-13 The Myth of the Individual 47:01
We see ourselves as separate from the rest of the world, but we’re not. We are a meeting point of all kinds of relational qualities, qualities that can be imbued with Dhamma to make our experience a mandala of sharing and communion. Stress comes from developing an ineffectual relationship with what happens. We practice to come out of the worldly dividedness into something more compassionate, deep, less isolated. This is sacred practice.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies The Sacred Cosmos
2017-04-02 Guided Meditation - Becoming a Refuge unto Yourself 48:17
We take refuge, but we also become a refuge. The degree to which we can cultivate value, precepts and restraint, we gain an increasing sense of authority to stand against the outward pull of thought and sense desire. This strength or determination can be felt in the body. Tap into the imaginal to sense its depth.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-02 Requirements for Movement into the Immaterial Domain 1:15:23
Movement into the immaterial/vertical domain occurs through restraint, renunciation and withdrawal, but all marked by pleasure. Most supportive is a cooperative social form where other people are doing the same thing. Monasteries model this social form. Refer to D33, considered ‘Vinaya for lay people.’
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-01 Recollecting and Enacting the Sacred 46:17
The cosmos is cosmos and not chaos because of a natural order. There is an internal order too in our embodiment where the energies of ideas, thoughts and psychologies are collected in the body. But we’ve lost our embodiment, and therefore access to the moral intelligence of the body. We can regain access through enacting, remembering and recollecting.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-01 Q&A Pt II 32:46
1. How to practice last 3 of 8 precepts; recipient of one’s giving determines one’s merit – please explain; 2. how interpersonal aspect of energy affect/support one’s practice and meditation; 3. giving hand to hand vs. in disembodied ways (credit cards, etc.); 4. self consciousness around my giving’ the art of receiving has been neglected; 5. how to be with others who don’t know their own goodness
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-01 The Field of Good Kamma and the Relational Field 21:10
References to suttas about giving: A5:33-37 Benefits of giving, 5 timely gifts; A8:39 Streams of merit; A5 Good and bad gifts; A6:38 Factors of donors and recipients
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-01 Q&A Part I 48:53
Caring for aging parents; celestial realm as metaphor or actuality; those who are spontaneously reborn; sacrifice; when I know I’m not observing precepts perfectly; meditation practice feels flat; advice for caregivers in medical field; breaking through feeling bleak about the world; subjective nature of the sacred
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-01 Generating a Meaningful World 63:11
Presentation of the multi-layered, holistic, vertical cosmos of the suttas as compared to our flat world that only extends geographically. One can move up and down the cosmos through one’s own actions – giving, ethics, renunciation, clearing the mind of the hindrances and developing deep meditation. One learns to make things sacred; sacred meaning everything is valued, has its place and is treated with respect. A study of the Kutadanta Sutta (D5.29) as an example of how the Buddha taught engagement and movement along this vertical/immaterial domain
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-04-01 Guided Meditation - If You Don’t Generate a World, Somebody Else’s Will Generate You 9:51
In meditation we practice bringing up what is pertinent, worthy of development, leading inwards. We bring things to mind that generate a locus of meaning, that generate our world. This is where we reclaim potency, value and meaning. Rather than be overwhelmed by a meaningless world we have the potential to generate a meaning world here now.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening
2017-03-31 Retreat Intro: The Gradual Path 19:59
The gradual path is the essence of the Buddha’s presentation. It starts with qualities we already know – generosity, morality and renunciation. Rather than starting with meditation while sitting on the cushion, this is the movement that begins to be properly cultivated and groomed in meditation. Then our work is much more internal, to clear the mind of the 5 hindrances.
Barre Center for Buddhist Studies BCBS The Gradual Path: The Step-by-Step Way to Awakening

Creative Commons License