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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

You know, I've been thinking this last week, just in general, more than I'd usually do what to teach because of

national world affairs. And I would like to make a case that one of the very strong

contributions that Buddhism has to our society, our world, now and in general, is its emphasis on ethics, on virtue.

And that an ethics and virtue is not the super popular topic, but that what it's popular,

how it comes in Buddhism, is that it's also, a manifestation, of what happens to people when they do Buddhist practice.

If you do mindfulness well, what comes is a heightened sensitivity to yourself in the world, and that heightened sensitivity will almost inevitably lead to what can be called an ethical sensitivity,

a heightened ethical sensitivity, because we start feeling intimately in ourselves that what harms ourselves.

We kind of violate ourselves, even, to use dramatic language.

We harm ourselves, we shut ourselves down, we alienate ourselves from ourselves,

that when we do things that are intentionally harmful for others, to others.

And also where there's a heightened ethical sensitivity to how harm affects

other people, our own way of harming people, but also how they're harmed by others in our society.

And the Buddha was clearly championed the idea that when we see harm being done to others, we should speak up.

That we shouldn't be passive about that.

And so this ethical sensitivity, then, we become increasingly sensitive to how people are

being harmed by unethical behavior, by harmful behavior.

And we do something really good for ourselves if we know how from this place of ethical sensitivity

to speak up. And the question is, what is that speaking up look like? How is it different than

being angry? How is it different than responding from hate?

What happens when we come from this deeper ethical sensitivity that Dharma practice inspires?

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