Guided Meditation: What is Needed?

No need for an immediate answer; using body awareness as a base for the citta; diving below critiques & resumés and listening; using the sign given by the citta.

Transcript

So using deep attention,

Wise attention,

Considered attention,

This question and response.

The question is to the citta,

To the heart,

To the sense of presence,

To the I behind the I am,

To awareness.

This has no awareness,

No specific object.

Unlike attention which takes a specific object,

Awareness has no specific object.

So the question is just kind of like dropping a penny down a well.

Question what's needed,

What's helpful in all this?

What's not needed,

What's not helpful?

And go past the level of thought,

Let the penny drop down,

That's the immediate wish to come up with an answer,

Dropping it into body.

The body is the base of citta,

The embodied intelligence is the base of citta,

You could say that citta is embodied,

Wherever you want to put it.

But there's something when one sets up a deep question,

This is what you really,

Really need.

What's really needed,

It's often a very simple thing.

And it's like,

This is the last moment of your life,

You know,

And the anything,

Could be anything,

Just keep it really open,

Just this last time,

What really needed now.

Or the first time,

But the sense of not operating according to scripts,

Buddhist scripts,

What is needed is more mindfulness,

More clarity,

More clarity,

You know.

No,

No,

No,

No,

Not that.

What's not needed is if other people would know,

No,

No other people.

What is needed is if I was at no,

No I,

Beneath that,

Behind that.

What's needed right down in the belly,

In your heart,

In your tissues.

So that's the place you let it drop.

And that sense of just even,

Maybe you can't hear anything.

Maybe what's needed is just to notice that.

Oh,

Another one,

What's beautiful now,

What would be beautiful.

So this is just turning to Chitta.

And it could just bring you into your body,

Into the tissues and textures and nerve endings and warmth and tingles of your body.

Maybe that's it,

Maybe it just does that.

Maybe that's all,

Maybe that's all that's needed.

Doesn't necessarily have to come up with a verbal response.

Maybe it just needed to be asked what was needed and to feel,

Here I am.

That's what was needed,

Just to dive a little bit beneath the programs and the agendas and the critiques and the resumes and so forth.

And listen.

And learn listening.

Learning,

Sometimes what's needed is learn to not know what's needed.

And listen.

So maybe the energies of trying to have an idea or something,

All that kind of slight doubting,

Restless sense is unseen or noted and you kind of can relax below that,

Beneath that.

Maybe there's a sign,

Could be a shift in your body impression.

You realize,

Oh,

I was really quite up in my shoulders and that shifted into my abdomen.

So this is the sign.

The signs could be silence,

It could be an embodied sense because it has no specific object and it can manifest a number of ways.

You might notice with that as you drop that little penny acknowledgement of,

Hmm,

There's more goodwill is needed or stop criticizing or fretting.

Just relax there.

You can,

We can,

Contented at what's needed.

It's to be contented at having nothing special.

So you,

The sign,

Jitta gives a sign,

A signal.

And then one can be mindful of that,

Bear that in mind.

Use that as something to frame or take into the way you frame your attention.

So this is where we encourage our Jitta to guide us,

Lead us,

And just even to bear in mind that that is possible.

We're not just the programs,

The tape loops of fretful sankaras,

But there's also primary intelligence.

If you learn to listen to it and respect it and give you something,

You can frame that up,

Stay with that.

So keeping that intelligence in mind,

It will tend to home in on something where it finds itself most fully represented.

Just the textures of the body or the breathing in and out or where the Jitta naturally finds,

Oh,

That's where I want to sit there.

Could be a quality of recollection of the goodwill,

Gratitude or gladness.

I want to sit there.

Okay,

Support it.

This way our practice is always fresh,

Always slightly mysterious,

But always getting in touch with the real thing.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Reviews

Very helpful. Thanks!

Wonderful, thank you!

🙏🙏🙏

Thank you. Love the "mm"s.

I really like it.

I really appreciate the metaphor of "letting the penny drop." Helpful for letting citta lead to whatever is needed.

"what is needed?" Fab way to start a sit. Thank you

Learning not to know what is needed... 🙏🏼

Ajahn Sucitto might not be to everyone's taste. I have listened to a number of his Dhama talks and guided meditations elsewhere on the web, and he certainly doesn't hand you anything on a plate to easily digest. You certainly have to work to get to the meaning sometimes. He also doesn't necessarily feel the need to speak in complete sentences, even less offer a performance like someone such as Ajahn Brahm.
However, I find it very useful to return to him from time to time in order to prevent me from falling into a meditation "comfort zone".
I would recommend "seasoning" your regular meditation practice with a little dash of Sucitto occasionally to bring a new perspective to your insight.
Good luck.

Wonderful... simple...

Ajahn Sucitto’s wealth of spiritual wisdom often bring fresh light to my practice. I like the idea of being aware of “the frame” with in which we choose to look at our experience.

You can trust the Thai Forest masters because their sila is impeccable. I know because I trained at one of their monasteries for a couple of years. Aj Succito's style is extremely accessible whilst being deceptively profound. All you need is a body, awareness and a bit of self discipline.

This is life-saving for me during a very difficult and confusing situation I am weathering right now. The voice and the message exude calm and harken back to the sentience before self. I return to it often, and equanimity is nearer. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I really enjoyed being within this simple focus awareness. Thank you!

Thank you for this reminder!

Lovely inquiry into Self, introspective, deep, personal. Thank you

Thank you for sharing. I found it extremely powerful. 🙏