Audio: Richard Witteman 2005

The following talks by Richard Witteman are available on both CD and audio tape.

September-October 2005 Retreat

Day 1	Stretching words to unfamiliar use. Not in order to name, but to point to what's unsayable, to open up space. Words fashioning sorrow and heartache from nothing - amazing. I suffer when I stand against.
Day 2	It's curiosity and wonder that pull me from thought's invitation. Just to be interested in what's here, which is so much. The anxiety and tediousness of seeking a fingerable answer. What a vast and wonderful thing to just not know. This unnameable beingness we call "awareness."
Day 3	Resting in presence - wholeness in which tensions come and go. Including the tension of body and mind which masquerades as separateness. A leap of faith, after believing thought is all we are, that beyond it isn't oblivion. Testing "Is this true?" in daily life - in the small sense and the larger.
Day 5	Core beliefs unseen produce inexplicable emotions, convoluted actions. We rub up against each other and something erupts. If we see our chance to question it, this volatility is not so frightening. It's an opening, bringing what has been driving us into the open sky. The old tug-of-war of believing thought is a problem.
Day 6	Racial hatred, religious hatred: inflagrations sparked by the flimsiest ideas. Yet we imagine self-hatred as a god-like voice of wisdom. Self-hatred getting entangled with "kill the ego"? Questioning stories: "Is this true? Is this me?" Curiosity turns to what's seeing, to presence itself. What is this?" Not knowing any answer.
Day 7	"Going home." Returning to our usual lives innocently. Letting not-knowing reveal our fabric of assumptions. What to trust? This bright presence is ever here, through the veils of identification. Abiding stillness - the light in each other's eyes. We don't have to look anywhere else. Dzogchen reading from third Karmapa. Being with the "full catastrophe." An undivided whole. Truly nowhere to go.