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

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So I guess So again, hello, and with this talk I begin now a week on mindfulness of breathing as part of a five week series on introducing

the basic elements of mindfulness meditation has taught at IMC inside meditation center and I'm

hoping that to spend five days on each of these five topics of these weeks,

breathing, body, emotions, thinking, and then bringing the practice to our life.

That over the five days, we're laying down a foundation,

moving into a fuller experience of it,

that maybe it will all be appreciated by people who are well experienced in practice as well.

And for those of you have had instructions, basic instructions and mindfulness,

before I hope that it's a little bit different what I have to offer

so it has a little different perspective and maybe it goes a little bit further about the potentiality of this wonderful practice that we do.

So we're here to practice mindfulness and the synonym I use for mindfulness is awareness and but

kind of developing a lucid awareness or clarity of awareness that we're really present for our experience and we're knowing

it, we're feeling it, seeing it, we're really there with the experience in a way that it feels a little bit like

a miracle, which is, maybe it's not a miracle exactly, who knows what a miracle is, but what a a marvel what a special thing to be

conscious to be aware and and just to really feel that awareness to feel that

to know that we're here and present.

I mean, we're not going to be around in a life for that long.

And this is the special time that for us to be conscious, to be aware, to be present, the

spark of life, spark of consciousness that will soon enough pass and someone else will have it.

There's been many people over the thousands of years who have had their time to be present. Now we have our time and to use that well.

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