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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org.

Good morning.

So I like to build a little bit on what I mentioned earlier,

but this practice of allowing, like whatever's arising, is there a way that we can allow it to be there, not pushing it away or secretly wishing that it would be different or

imagining that it's different or getting lost in the past.

And so why might we do this?

One is often we don't appreciate or really are sensitive to that subtle agitation that arises when we're pushing and

pulling towards experience trying to get rid of something or wanting more of something. It feels like, oh, this is just how life is. I'm always trying to avoid what's uncomfortable and going towards what's comfortable. But we often are just not even noticing that that's extra to try

to make things be just right, you know, avoid any discomfort, avoid anything that's not the way that we want it to be or wish it would be.

And so there's this way in which that there's a sort of unsettledness that often we don't even notice is there

until it's gone and then how does this unsettledness go?

It's often during meditation.

It's often when we have an opportunity

to do some extended meditation time,

like today with a sit-walk sit number of hours that we start to realize

oh yeah there's a certain more amount of ease that's available a certain amount of well-being that's available.

And what would it be like to have this always in your life all day every day is to have this certain

sense of collectedness or like yeah things are okay maybe it's not the absolute favorite thing you've ever had but it's not the

worst thing, worst experience you've ever had. So this practice of

this sense of settling, of this subtle agitation

that it's so subtle and it's so common

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