Citta - Our Liberation Potential

Suggestions for getting in touch with the citta by using intelligence through the energetic system.

Transcript

So what I've been encouraging is just to get in touch with this intelligence,

The basis of it,

The kind of language it speaks,

Language of fluctuations and pressures and intentions and movements and you can see this occurring really most clearly,

Even though it's not verbally,

At what I call the subtle form level or the energetic form when one feels somehow expansive or contracted or pressurized or grounded or spinning around though physically your body looks about the same.

And that's a very real experience,

This is not some kind of esoteric thing,

It's actually what's happening all the time.

And the point is that when you sit still and you meditate whatever you're doing with that,

You enter into this domain,

Whether you like it or not,

You're in it because it is a part of reality.

So it's not like this is some new thing,

This is just trying to name it for what it is.

So we can have the realm of form,

Which is what we can see with our eyes and we can measure that.

It's so big,

It's so small,

It weighs so much,

It's the world of form.

And you have this world of what I call subtle form,

It's energetic,

It can be detected,

It can be detected in terms of energies that radiate around the body and around living systems and when living systems cease to live that energy is no longer there.

Life force energy,

It's called Ayusankara in the Buddhist language.

And then we have what we might call completely immaterial,

Which is thought.

We can measure what thought does,

Chemically you can see it has certain effects,

Certain synapses light up.

You can't really measure a thought in,

But you can measure in terms of its effect on the energetic system.

Certain thoughts make me spin,

Certain thoughts lift me up,

Certain thoughts really weigh me down,

Certain thoughts haunt me,

They run after me,

They jump on me.

Where are they?

You can feel the effects of them.

So you know,

And also those thoughts cannot really be adequately dealt with through thoughts.

They can be described with thoughts,

They can be communicated in words to other people who think them,

But you can't manage them with thought.

And yet this remains probably one of the most predominant aspects of our subjective experience is the thought realm that you can't manage.

But you can think about it and add more to it.

Or you can try and kind of shut it out with either skillful means or unskillful means.

Now where it sort of links up is in this key word sankara,

The Buddhist word sankara,

I touched upon it,

I is sankara,

The life force energy that's in all living systems.

They all have that.

Human beings that's differentiated into what's called the kaya sankara,

This word myself,

Vitality embodied energy.

So vitality,

Body,

Energy,

That which when you close your eyes,

You can feel senses of movements and not sensations,

It's energies traveling,

And they're very much affected by tension and relaxation.

So tension tends to be a very powerful frozen body energy,

And relaxation when it becomes loose and expansive,

We generally enjoy the relaxing bit.

So much so we're prepared to get tensed up to have it.

Really get yourself wound up and organized to have holiday.

You can't just not get wound up in the first place,

That's a bit boring.

So one thing we get in meditation,

We can begin to find this enjoyment of the relaxed energy and without having to really do much,

A lot more than just sit quietly and be skillful So this kaya sankara,

This is the skill we call samatha,

The skill of calming,

Steadying,

Soothing,

Amplifying,

Spreading the body energy,

And this is primarily done through mindfulness of breathing,

The subjective experience of breathing,

Not the thing we think about,

But this very feeling flow that accompanies respiration,

Chi,

Another word for it.

This is to do with the kaya sankara,

And we have another,

So the human beings also have chitta sankara,

Which is the energy or the activations to do with heart.

It can mean everything from emotions such as love or rage,

To inclinations,

Determination,

Patience,

Something determines in the heart.

It's not a rational process,

It may be triggered by a rational process like I've got to sit here and wait,

So why don't I just get patient,

Okay,

And you can kind of try to encourage that.

But essentially it's the heart energy,

It was patient,

Determined,

Inspired,

Despairing,

So it ranges a whole load of irrational experiences,

Some of them very beautiful,

Faith,

Trust,

Rapture,

Inspiration,

So forth,

Chitta sankara,

It moves,

And as it moves we feel moved by it for better or worse.

And you have another form which is called the vajisankara,

The ability to form concepts,

Words,

So this is something that human beings have to a great degree,

Kind of a system that can abstract and name things.

This is what God gave to Adam,

Wasn't it,

A gift of being able to name things.

Name that.

So we can step back,

Turn it into a concept,

Store it up,

Isn't that neat.

And it's so magical that we get a bit intoxicated with it,

We think we know something because we can name it,

Store it up,

Therefore I know you,

I know this,

I know that,

Because I can put a label on it,

Store it up.

And so this amazing capacity,

Literally,

It's really interesting,

The word spell,

The first boats,

The ability to form words and the ability to produce magic,

And they're pretty much the same thing.

It is a magic and we get dazzled by it.

So,

But there it is,

We have that.

Fundamentally in Buddhist training you tend to pare down and limit that articulation to very simple pertinent and pissy comments,

Not whole spools,

But just what's the feeling now?

Tell me it.

What's happening now?

Give it a word.

Okay,

You got the word?

Right.

Feel moody.

Okay,

Take that into your heart.

How's that?

How's that in your body?

Okay.

Now,

Right,

Now you've got it,

It's a direct reality.

Now manage it,

Be present with that,

Find your ground with that,

Find your space with that,

Find your rhythm and breathing with that.

Okay.

Okay.

Now as that settles,

What comes out of that?

Think I need to let go of that.

That's what it says.

Okay.

Now we've learned something.

I need to brighten this up.

I need to come forward.

So this is the way we really educate.

Verbal process may begin that.

It takes it into the heart,

Into the body,

Body digests it,

Comes back into the heart and then we maybe get an idea.

Sometimes we never really understand,

We just think,

I don't know,

It's gone now.

That was enough.

So that's the process.

So this is the body bit is the digestive bit where we take things from the completely abstract conceptual into the energetic and use this subtle body form to handle that.

And of course we can use the gross body form to give the energetic form something to feel grounded in like I stand or I walk or I sit,

Very simple body things that give that energy something definitely to feel held by.

So it's not just,

Because energy can flow all over the place and you really want it to be contained.

This is magic and you need to hold that carefully.

This is why of course we don't do intoxicants and liquor and so forth.

Believe in the intoxication of knowledge you should be careful with.

Remember the Sorcerer's Apprentice?

The story of that Sorcerer's Apprentice?

Who knew all the spells to get things going but didn't know any of them how to get them to stop.

Do you know that one?

The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

You only knew half the spells in the book.

We're a bit like that.

Now to get things going we don't know how to switch them off.

So just deal with you.

Now the other really important piece of conceptual information to provide you with is karma.

Human beings are hugely karmic potential.

Karma means the ability to have a wide range of decisive actions.

So a human being could be hellish,

Brutal,

Serene,

Exquisitely sensitive,

Totally dumb,

You know a whole range of actions and activities.

You get people who can do beautiful music.

Some people who can do wonderful kickboxing.

Some people who,

I don't know,

You know,

All kinds of stuff.

Some people who are really good at being nasty.

Malicious.

That's geniuses of serious kinds.

And we have a range of this karmic ability to act and engage.

Some of it good,

Some of it bad.

We're also karmically rich and we're able to receive a huge amount of impressions.

We're like blotting paper in some sense.

So we easily are affected.

Karma is also about being affected and storing up those effects.

Now if this is skillful this is the way we learn.

We receive an effect,

Oh not so good don't do that.

Or good.

Or some good some bad.

Or short-term good.

Or long-term bad.

Or long-term not much fun.

Short-term interesting.

Short-term a bit boring.

Long-term great.

Which is often meditation.

And ideally if you get a bit savvy you generally recognize short-term boring,

Long-term good is best.

It doesn't have to be boring of course.

It's long-term you want to look at because this is where things really get embedded so they become deeply embedded patterns.

And then you get what's called strong karmic potentials.

So we have this karma potentials vast.

You know compared with other beings like if you're an amoeba you know it's not belligerent amoebas and kind amoebas and they're all about the same.

They don't have bad days.

They get on with sort of limited karma potential.

They don't really learn much and they don't really do much.

But they hang in and it seemed to be going all right actually better than we are.

Still going after 70 millions of years.

But they don't get enlightened.

So this is the human capacity because we have enough to be out of this wisdom capacity to review karma.

Oh that goes nowhere useful.

That goes somewhere useful.

That causes things to just dissolve and I feel spacious and free.

Oh that's an interesting one.

There's also the possibility for liberation from it.

And actually oh yeah something lights up at that.

So most of our practice as a synopsis is about really understanding getting in touch with feeling karmic process.

And you must consider this as a measurement because in terms of our citta our enlightenment potential heart which can be released it doesn't really move in terms of time or space it moves in terms of karma.

So we can see these bodies of change in accordance with temporality.

Citta doesn't change in temporal circumstances.

This means you know you can still have bits of you that are three years old.

Still operating.

Some people seem to never get beyond the age of five.

Still the old grab me mind stuff.

So even though their bodies may be 50 60 there's a lot of them is still five or six.

Citta doesn't move in terms of time but it does move in terms of karma.

This means in a nutshell that means that our process is when we're beginning to recognize what are the effects and they can be measured emotionally.

What are the things that get me going light me up that really form my world.

My subjective world things I really notice and I'm interested in and moved by and impassioned by things I'm frustrated by and annoyed by and disappointed by.

That's my world and that's the world that is built in karmic terms.

The stuff that gets me going activates me.

Yeah and you want to know this because this is the only journey there's no movement otherwise.

Otherwise you were just stuck in a time warp.

Sometimes we're out you still remain five years old till you die.

So because that doesn't count.

What counts is have you felt have you met frustration and come to terms with that.

Have you met betrayal and come to terms with that.

Have you met feeling totally swept away and intoxicated and come to terms with that.

Have you met a sense of gladness and joy and felt that come to terms with that.

Have you met irritation anger and come to terms with that.

Have you have these things in you been seen experienced felt been mindfully held been surmounted through wisdom and released.

This is this is that's it.

That's it.

Where does that process occur.

Where does this process of working through karma occur.

We don't work it out in our heads.

That's one thing we cannot work it out.

You can get finer and finer maps intellectually but like any map you don't walk anywhere you don't go anywhere on a map.

It's certainly useful to have a few but sometimes just a very simple map point A point B that way is enough.

So you don't work it out there.

You work it out somewhere where the emotional sense the jitta sankara that's the being affected sense is felt in an energetic sense.

I could say in your body remembering I'm not talking about your legs or your fingers but this embodied domain on the level of subtle subtle form you feel the effects of that and the important thing you know is to be able to meet that there at the same time as you have in full awareness or as far as you can get some experience of this is the grounded body this is the spacious body this is the basic sanity body it feels okay to be here now this lands on it.

It lands on it instead of me going into up into the budgie sankara this is for I shouldn't do that this is done yesterday why am I this why am I that we go into the feels like feels like tightening rushing spinning fiery breathing in now changing feels like sinking feels all I call it even sad now that's different and we don't really even have to have you know words like angry frustrated just sort of felt words feels like pressure feels like pushing feels like stabbing feels like spacing feels like softening feels like loosening feels like this doesn't really matter what words you use as long as they mean something to you and they mean something to you on a kind of heart level yeah so this is almost poetic depressionist now that language is is you know the language is very relative all you want to do it all you want to use the language for is to is to mean you get the uh-huh that's it yeah uh-huh I've got a handle on it I'm with that that's the skill of naming is just to be able to frame something yeah and not to get lost in the name but to be able to hold a frame yeah all right so that says I can there can be a focus on that it's that area there and now how am I with what's it like to be with that can there be groundedness in the presence of that can there be spaciousness in the presence of that if not then you then this is this is risky first thing then get grounded this is this that's that this is this this is this it's not him it's not them it's not somewhere else it's this and you know it you know it because it happens time and time again okay no excuses no explanations no guilt this okay now can you just breathe in breathe out let that rhythm flow through that where the quality also heartfulness the fundamental quality of chitta heart well guess what it's half full and you can call that empathy or love or compassion or but remember not to try to pump it up but if you're present with something in the heartful way then the heart quality will naturally be present there and what you want to do is just avoid going too much into analysis object definition explanation result orientation all those things which take you away from it but if it gets it becomes difficult as it tends to do what will help definitely is coming to the gross body which means maybe you walk you stand you walk you stand you sit so you use that as a kind of mooring post to to help the energy the subtle form not get caught up in the heart form not get overwhelmed in the heart form and you've got to bear this in mind because this can be the missing piece we can be quite clear and actually quite accurate on an intellectual level it's not that it's wrong it's just it is only a map we can even be deeply concerned and compassionate and that's also beautiful but that's not enough because it doesn't provide the ground where these things can discharge when they can cease where they can aha they tend to just keep spinning and activating heart must have the body with it in order to touch ground the earth wire of our lives and then it's possible so you want to look out as you meditate for those there are certain key signs where that ground is being lost one is one goes into a lot of thoughts one finds itself unconsciously because it's all this stuff is involuntary there's involuntary propulsion into the world of thought and explanation why who when where what should I do who thought is it why would like this it goes into all that it's very compulsive and sparkling they can go into the realm of increasing the emotional intensity lamentation over it feeling annoyed by it feeling guilty about it feeling doomed so you get this sweep where what's happening is the emotional charges going up to the point where you start to touch into overwhelm now overwhelm is risky once you start to touch into overwhelm you really are losing it yeah it's flooding you're losing it and then if you don't come out of that likelihood is you can start to act in ways that you're not really responsible and some of these may be actions you do just personally you know all actions you do to other people but the overwhelm place is just where it's about to spin off into a complete dissociation from from here and now so we come into anything that feels that overwhelmed then you've got to just open your you know get back in that body and walk up and down find the ground another sense is coming my soul under wealth in the opposite we just get so kind of there's no registering anything it just kind of goes into a numb state avoid state we think well I'm getting really peaceful here so I quite like to do this I have over years of patience and repeated instructions and so forth and life lessons learned to try to avoid that strategy yeah things getting a bit intense best thing to do is just go you probably see your friends doing this on occasion trying to wobbly they just go wait till it's over but naturally because karma can be pretty intense so these are these strategies when we skip out of it and the point of having the body but is this is a place where you can avoid those strategies

Reviews

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Excellent teaching.

Ajahn sucitto gives some of the keenest, detailed instruction on how to skillfully use subtle and gross body energies to support citta. This talk is so helpful.

This is the best talk for understanding, the importance of staying grounded in the body .

Insightful. Explains some terms thrown around without understanding the meaning. For instance: Karma. Listening again.

Very helpful to me. Thank you so much.

Excellent !!! Full of great information.

What a pleasant teacher! You make learning and growing a delight. Thank you. Namaste 🙏

Very helpful, useful. Thank you.

I just love this monk. Always laughing. His talks fill me with joy and a feeling of ease.

Very clear, instructive and wise advice. Thank you Ajhan 🙏

Always inspirational and enlightening! Thank you 🙏❤🌈

I would love to hear more talks from Ajahn Sucitto. Very informative and inspiring.

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Wonderful teaching! Reminder of the effect of karmic energy and how to be more aware in the moment of the effect. Loved the humor shared by the teacher! I will definitely come back to this one. Thank you! ❤

Well,that was interesting