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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So good morning and welcome to this now fourth talk, introducing the very important topic of insight,

and for the insight meditation practice.

And this week, introducing it, I'm laying out the foundation of foundational awareness practices that are used for having insight.

Insight is a byproduct of a careful, present moment attention to our experience here and now.

And so knowing how to do that is important. And for insight meditation, we're using engaging a wider

range of our attentional faculties than we do when

we're practicing samadhi. There's a lot of big overlap. And one of the important ones that

with some people would beg to differ with me, but there's a greater usage of curiosity and

intelligence for insight meditation. The stance of insight meditation is the question, what is this? And sometimes I've

just used the word what in sitting in meditation. And the what, the question what, the stance of what,

is not looking for an answer, but it's more like

I was some occasionally would say to me, what is this? And it's without actually moving

at all. It's as if my whole system, attentional system, is opening the arms wide and stepping forward to be more connected, more

present for whatever experience I'm having. And using this question, what, what is it,

and a sense of receptivity that can follow from that,

and getting closer, letting it be more intimate,

is making a choice about how it's useful to be present.

And to track that choice to see, is this forward leading?

Does this help me be more present? Does it help me be more centered here? Does it help me to be more connected and to develop greater clarity of attention

and clarity of knowing what's happening in the moment? All these kinds of questions can be done kind of, you know, somewhat without a lot of thought.

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