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

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Great, so good morning everyone and welcome and

close everyone who is might be watching on YouTube and hello.

And I've been away for a month or so. It's nice to be back here with all of you.

Here.

And I was away doing a month-long retreat.

And I was really on my own cabin in the Cirrus.

But I had one discourse of the Buddha that went through my mind that I reviewed

and was kind of inspiration for it. And I'd like to share that with you today.

And there was a core teaching of the Buddha that is given in this course.

It's not by the Buddha, it's he gave it but then someone, a disciple of his, repeats it in the context of the story.

And the story is interesting when the teaching is particularly powerful.

And it's said to be teachings from the Buddha that was kind of a genesis of what Fazan, Mahayana Buddhism,

of this famous philosopher, Nagarjuna. So it's a very, very, very significant teaching.

But the fact that it's in this wider context of the story is nice.

And the story has to do with the monk named Chana.

And Chana had been a monk for, it could be 45 years.

And he was distraught for a number of reasons.

But one of them, after 45 years of being a monk in the time of the Buddha, he still wasn't enlightened.

He still didn't, in his language, he knew the teachings but he had not seen the teachings.

And just learning the teaching is one thing, but to see it for yourself and your direct experience, that's the whole other thing.

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