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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So the topic this morning is about the atmosphere of the mind, the different mind states and so if I wanted to have an intimate conversation with a friend you

know I'd kind of find kind of a nice quiet room kind of that conference room over there

where we can talk and it's really nice and peaceful and we can really get close to each other

and and to be very different than if I tried to have the same conversation

with them in a busy airport, right?

Might be the same things we talked about, but the atmosphere be very different.

And so it's the same thing in our minds.

So let's say, you know, an incident arises in our memory and our mind is unhappy. It's just unhappy that's, you know, I didn't want that, you know, and kind of pushes it away.

It's a very different experience if the mind greets it with,

oh gosh, I'm sorry you're hurting.

I'm sorry I'm hurting and brings a little

compassion to it and says it's okay that you're here okay this is part of life to

to have these kind of difficult feelings, these kind of difficult situations.

And so we open to it.

And so the environment of the mind, the way, the attitude of the mind, the atmosphere of the mind has a very strong effect on how we relate to experience.

For instance, if I was like really happy, you know, a really happy mood and I've had things like that happen.

I was really in a great mood.

We were at the airport and they lost my luggage and I said oh well my

luggage has everywhere we're going to stay. I have no idea where we're staying.

Well we'll spend the night at the airport and actually

I had that happen with you know I was with my husband. He was my partner then and you know and we had a great time.

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