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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So hello and welcome to this Wednesday morning talk, third talk of the week, and the eighth talk of the series on

samadhi, which will go on for some time. And in laying down the foundations for samadhi, an

effective samadhi, what needs to be in place first. I'm emphasizing how we divide ourselves,

limit ourselves, lose the sense of our wholeness, the fullness of all of our capacities.

Sometimes if we really want something that our eyes, or something we want, we might be focusing

only on what we can see. If we want some particular object, we don't see anything else. We're just kind of focusing on what is that thing that we want some particular object, we don't see anything else.

We're just kind of focusing on what is that thing that we want.

And so the full capacity of hearing and smelling and sensing

and taking in the wider world is limited by the strength of desire.

Now, of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

From time to time, it's helpful and important to do that,

to be kind of focused.

But we get stuck that way, and people get stuck for a lifetime.

Sometimes strong desires, strong

aversion, strong fears, strong

pulling away, closing up,

closing our hearts,

avoiding what's really difficult

in us, difficult unresolved emotions,

staying in our head and our thoughts,

...