Spring 2011 Shamatha Retreat

Although there are two more days of retreat, this is our last afternoon session. Alan begins by jumping right in to a guided meditation in which he "puts us through the paces" of the three types of mindfulness of breathing, settling the mind in its natural state, awareness of awareness, and, finally, vipashyana. This is followed by a long question and answer period. [26:55] Alan answers these questions from the group, particularly focusing on the final three questions. 1. I have noticed during the retreat how the English language, with personal pronouns an integral grammatical structure, both serves to assist the development of a concretized sense of self/ego and duality, and then becomes like their protector. (I understand most languages represent individuals or groups to a lesser or greater degree (except for Thai, Burmese, and Japanese).) I experimented during the retreat with not using "I, me or mine" and it showed just how deeply ingrained the constructed sense of the world and self is in language.