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

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Well, welcome, everyone, to IMC, and thank you for bringing us the baby Buddha

and decorated this wonderful pagoda with flowers to celebrate.

And we celebrate the life of this amazing person from long, long ago that we call Buddha,

which means the one who is awake. And the statue that's right here closest, is, some of you can't see it, but he's walking,

and he's walking with his hand up. And walking represents that he's actually in the world,

our world. And the hand up means two things.

He means that he carries no harm for others.

He intends to cause no harm.

He's said to be walking in the world harmlessly.

And a radical commitment to non-harming.

And the other thing this open hand means is that he's everyone's friend.

Hi, he's saying, I'm friendly, meaning he has no weapon in his hand.

He's open hand, available, friendly for everyone.

And his most important teaching, that the heart center of it all, is to live a life of peace,

both inside for oneself and outside of promoting peace in the world, starting by going into the world without any hatred,

without any conflict, without any war.

And so he then taught how to live a peaceful life.

And so we celebrate when he was born.

And there's something very special about when humans are born. I think all of you

were born at some point. Is that right? I think everyone here had that experience. Probably you

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