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 series of talks on insight, the core recognitions that arise from doing mindfulness practice.

The core recognitions that help set us free, loosen us, liberate us from clinging and suffering.

And one of those deep recognitions, deep seeings, deep revelations, is a deeper understanding

of suffering. And it's a big word, we've been talking about now for a number of suffering. And it's a big word. We've been talking about it now for a number of days.

But one important aspect of it is to appreciate that whatever it is that

whatever it is that Buddhists are talking about, when they talk about suffering,

that it comes with tension, it comes with a holding on tight, it comes with a solidification of some inner

parts of ourselves, the mind, the heart, the inner life, gets frozen, gets stuck,

gets locked into something. So there's a whole series of words that can be used that are near synonyms.

Maybe some of these words work better for others. But if I am angry with something and I need to express that anger to

other people or believe I have to, and so I make a fist in order to express myself, and I pound my fist into my other hand,

and, you know, insisting that the English language has too many letters to keep track of.

It's too many letters. We should have fewer letters.

And yes, I can be in a campaign to change the

English language. But I could be suffering if I'm trying to do that and trying to get everyone

on the bandwagon and insist how right I am and how important this is. And there might be good reasons for this kind of idea.

But I'm suffering because of it.

So I could be looking at my suffering and trying to understand why I have this idea,

what's the philosophy behind it, what's the linguistic

elements of it, what's the real right count for letters, and maybe, you know, just cut up

...