Vipassana Retreat, Installment 19

SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2009, 8:05 AM

I wish I’d taken notes on last night’s dharma talk. I’d been frustrated by the previous ones, bored and sort of alienated, which is weird, because I usually dig listening to Shinzen on the radio. He’d been discussing his concept of God in terms of Zero Point, the source of all being in various aspects and strategies for trying to perceive and approach this… whatever. I hadn’t been able to go there with him. Last night, however, he tied it all together. He spoke of his version of the liberation path as a sort of conceptual triangle: ONE source, TWO (of something else; subjective vs. objective? This is why I wish I’d taken notes…), THREE core skills (concentration, clarity and equanimity), FOUR quadrants of happiness, FIVE traditions necessary to the working of the liberation path (CTART; Concepts, Teachers, Application, Rhythm (of daily practice and periodic retreats, and Technique), and SIX themes (see Five Ways-Six Themes handout).