“In separation,” the Buddha said, “lies the world’s great misery.” This talk shows how awareness dissolves our personal sense of being separate selves. It also shows how awareness deconstructs the misery-making effects of social constructions that cause us to feel separate, and that we also take to be “self”: race, gender, sexual identity, and class.

Why do we do or spiritual practice, and what exactly do we do? In this talk Eric Kolvig attempts to sum up the living essence of the Buddha’s teachings and practice in the vipassana tradition, so that we have a clear motivation for our practice and can make clear effort in it.