Join Tahn Pamutto and friends for an online daylong retreat in the Upavana Zoom, Sunday, February 23. The theme of the day will be ‘Nirodha’, the Third Noble Truth of Cessation.
“Just as the great ocean has but one taste, the taste of salt, so too this Dhamma and discipline has but one taste: the taste of liberation.” (AN 8.19)
What is this taste of liberation the Buddha describes? We try to use words like ‘happiness’, ‘peace’, and ‘enlightenment’ to describe Nibbāna, but these definitions fall short. To the degree these words describe things or states they are different and have different tastes. To fully realize the Third Noble Truth for ourselves we have to change our way of thinking. When we describe nibbāna in terms of what has ceased without remainder – this is the absence of desire, the absence of grief, the absence of ego – then we can truly say we describe the same liberation the Buddha did so long ago. The various forms of suffering were different but the freedom from them is one and the same. On this daylong we’ll look at the experience of Cessation in depth.
Cessation is ‘to be realized’. It is an awakening to a fundamental reality. How many things do we think are ‘us’? Do we believe we carry our anxiety with us wherever we go? Our greed, our anger? Our sadness? Or are they only there part of the time and not there when we don’t think about them? How would we know? How does one wake up to the absence of something?
Relevant Suttas:
Schedule (all times EST)
9am – Refuges and Precepts, Opening Reflection
9:45am-12pm – Sitting and Walking (zoom room open)
12pm-1pm – Lunch Break
2:00-4:30pm – Guided Meditation, Sitting and Walking
4:30pm – Discussion/ Q&A