Bhante Sujato left a career as a musician to become a Buddhist monk in 1994. He took higher ordination in Thailand and lived there in forest monasteries and remote hermitages. He spent several years at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia before founding Santi Forest Monastery in New South Wales in 2003. Following Bhante Sujato’s wishes, Santi became a nun’s monastery in 2012, and he returned to live in Bodhinyana. In 2019, Bhante Sujato moved to Sydney to establish Lokanta Vihara (the Monastery at the End of the World) with his long term student, Bhante Akaliko, to explore what it means to follow the Buddha’s teachings in an era of climate change, globalised consumerism, and political turmoil.
Meditation on awareness. Dhamma talk Part 3 on Satipaṭṭhāna: Mind (citta). The power of awareness. Movement towards subtlety, like an echo or an animal. Focussing on how greed, hate or delusion effect the mind; the mind with or without these. Awareness emerging from contemplation of the body and feeling. Discussion of wanting and not wanting, noticing when hate is reduced. How to see delusion in meditation; moha as thinking you know, delusion as a destraction from knowing often by way of greed and hate.
Meditation on the elements inside ourselves. Dhamma talk Part 2 on Satipaṭṭhāna: Feelings (vedana). Satipaṭṭhāna as a "samādhinimitta", use of nimitta vs. descriptions of lights during meditation in the suttas. Anapanāsati as a another way to do Satipaṭṭhāna. Vedana as present in the breath. Pain during meditation. How the Buddha emphasised happiness during meditation (often a synonym for meditation!). Equanamity is the final stage in major lists such as the seven awakening factors, brahmavihāras.
Meditation on presence of mind. Beginning of dhamma talks on Satipaṭṭhāna. Part 1: The Body. The meanings of Satipaṭṭhāna; explicitly means meditation. The four Satipaṭṭhāna meditations are body (kāyānupassī), feelings (vedanānupassī), mind (cittānupassī), principles (dhammānupassī). The body as something simple to ground oneself on. Mindfulness as "presence of mind", related to time, to keep on remembering and being conscious with firmness and steadiness.
Chanting. Guided meditation on the breath as a simple kind of abiding; Audience Q&A: Q: How to overcome the body restricting the breath? ~A: 1. Patience. 2. Slight shift to focus on the out-breath 4. Contemplate non-self 5. Focus on pleasure in the breath. Q: How to let go of worry? ~A: Uddhacca-kukkucha one place to look, 'like conditions like' so to be happy tomorrow, do something good now. Q: Is mindfulness different to concentration? ~A: 'Concentration' term can convey controlling solutionism but concentration fine as a word. Q: Technique of being without your breath for 20 minutes by telling the breaths you love them? Q: What did the Buddha say about monarchism? Q: Meditation during lucid dreaming?
Chanting. Guided meditation on the breath; ways to avoid instrumentalising meditation. Dhamma talk on leadership. Comparing the Queen and the Buddha, qualities of leadership the Buddha promoted, as well as leadership in the sāngha.
Chanting. Guided meditation focused on pairs of contrasting ideas to encourage contemplation on wholesome and unwholesome qualities in the mind. Dhamma talk on the Dvayatānupassanāsutta from Sutta Nipāta 3.12 (Contemplating Pairs). Detailed analysis of this sutta of contrasting pairs with correlation to dependent origination; of which one pair aspect leads to the origination of suffering, and the other pair aspect leads to the cessation of suffering. Brief discussion on the history, organization, and grouping of numbers in the suttas.
Guided meditation on the breath; peace of mind as a natural state. Dhamma talk on the disruptive and mysterious figure of the 'dark sage' with reference to three people in the suttas: Nālaka, Asito Devala, Ambaṭṭha. Discussion of this archetype, racism in the suttas, the three figures and their attempts to problematise caste.
Guided meditation on death: 'Life is uncertain, death is certain'. Dhamma talk on death; how the Buddha talked about death as something knowable, and what happens after death.
Guided meditation on the five khandas (constituents / groups). Dhamma talk on the five khandas: rupa (body / appearance), vedana (feeling / experience), saññā (perception), saṅkhāra (choices), citta (consciousness). Discussion of how in the EBTs, the 5 khandas were often what people already identified with, and their impermanence was what the Buddha emphasized. Discussion of how other disciplines and near-death-experiences implicitly invoke the five khandas.
Meditation and dhamma talk on the four iddhipādas (feet/powers): enthusiasm (chanda), energy (viriya), awareness (citta), inquiry (vīmaṁsā). Discussion on the four iddhipādas and vibhava-tanhā (the desire to not exist) and its antidote, the wish to know. The basis of psychic powers as expansions of things we know already. Ideas on how to develop the iddhipādas.
