Fall 2011 Shamatha Retreat

Dharma talk and meditation on Awareness of Awareness with the focus on the observer: Is there someone in there? The Bahiya (of the Garment) Sutra. Bahiya received a short discourse from the Buddha and immediately became an arhat. Bahiya was a merchant who had sailed the seas. On his eighth voyage, he was shipwrecked and washed ashore naked. He used the flotsam on the beach to cover himself and the local villagers saw him and thought he was a holy man. He became well-regarded as an arhat from whom the villagers often asked spiritual and mundane advice. Eventually Bahiya began to wonder if he was, indeed, an arhat. However a feminine diva appeared to him and said that he was not, but that he should go to the Buddha who could give him instructions. Bahiya walks a long way across India to find the Buddha and asks on three different occasions for instruction. The third time, the Buddha consents and gives the short discourse on selflessness. Bahiya becomes immediately liberated as an arhat. Three days l