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

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So this morning I'm going to talk about a little bit about internal life speech, but also how Vedana, the feeling tone of her

inner voice affects us. So, Vedana is that our experience is either pleasant, unpleasant, or neither, and we tend to

cling to the pleasant and push away the unpleasant, and usually not even notice the neither

pleasant or unpleasant.

As the mind slows down, it's much easier to see that feeling tone of our sensations,

and we can relax into them however they are and not get pulled into them.

Life is filled with unpleasant sensations. They're not going to go away.

It's not like we can manipulate our life for things to always be pleasant.

So the idea is not to have one over the other, but to be at peace with however those sensations are.

But one of the reasons we get caught in our thinking is that we're unaware of the feeling tone of our thinking.

Worrying in negative judgment, thoughts, regrets, they tend to be unpleasant.

Thoughts like anticipation, maybe thinking about loved ones, gratitude.

They tend to be pleasant.

And when we get into our thinking, often can come in patterns of thinking for many of us.

And the patterns we get caught by.

And for instance, in particular during meditation, so some of us really fall into planning.

We might plan and replan the same thing many, many times.

Now planning in itself can be pleasant or unpleasant, and it's helpful to know what's

feeding the pattern.

I like to plan often.

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