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

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So hello on this Monday morning and as we begin a new theme for this week the

theme which is a continuation of this series I've been giving on introduction to mindfulness. This is

part two of that series and today last week I talked about mindfulness of clinging.

And one of the Buddhas common teachings about clinging is the way that clinging gathers together, collects and

accumulates over time so that there is but there are bundles of clinging.

And the, so the opposite of that is non-clinging and the absence of

the absence of accumulated clinging.

And so what we want to start noticing in mindfulness,

not just what's present,

but there is a time in mindfulness we want to notice to be mindful of what is absence.

In any given moment there is infinite number of things which are absent to our awareness so you can be

quite busy if you try to be taken to account all of it but in the teachings in this

practice we want to notice some the salient absences that are really significant in the moment,

in relationship to clinging, the absence of clinging and we want to appreciate that absence to make room for more of it.

The recognition of the value and the goodness and the healthiness of non-clinging

supports the heart, the mind, the body, the whole system we have to start becoming

more oriented to the world of non-clinging.

Growing up, many people are not taught to pay attention to the qualities, characteristics of a non-clinging heart, non-clinging mind.

And what we're anything, we can by somehow or rather we get the message to cling more, want more, be attached, have more, do more.

And or because we're afraid we get the message that we have to kind of, you know, clamp down, hold back, shrink, resist,

...