The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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So, So many years ago I was in graduate school I was in graduate school and in graduate school I took one philosophy class and I think I really only

remember one thing from that philosophy class. I'm going to teach you what I taught. And that is

the concept of the saddle back of the present?

What's the present?

What's the present moment?

How long is it?

Is it just like that quickly?

Just a flash?

Or is it, you know, the length of time

to finish a sentence.

How long is the present moment?

And so the idea was a saddleback,

was the idea, like a you or something.

That, and I suppose you could call it a hill you know

rather than a saddleback but that you're kind of you go into the present moment

present moment and you're kind of in it and then at some point you're kind of at the bottom but you're already going up but you're not quite

left yet left it yet so there is a of at a present moment has some kind of vague

temporality, some kind of vague length of time. So that's what I learned in

philosophy.

That's what I remember.

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