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

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Okay.

So from Tolstoy and a Karenina, that famous line, all happy families are alike,

but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

And in the Buddhist tradition, unhappiness,

maybe we say duca suffering,

is charted quite meticulously the varieties of suffering, the three species of suffering, the four types of clinging,

the hindrances, the fetters, the subtle fetters, the subtle fetters, the subtle fetters, the Upa calaisas, the subtle fetters, attachment to light, a million ways to suffer, the fever dream of thirst, that is greed and the heart on fire of hate, the foggy, bewildered indecisiveness of delusion,

all these different ways of that we can suffer, that we do suffer.

But ultimately, I might say it's the reverse of Tolstoy.

Suffering is suffering, clinging is all of the same peace.

It's the expression of freedom that is highly varied.

There's more, you could say, of our personality in our freedom than there is in our suffering.

Your spontaneity and aliveness, and we could say uniqueness, is found not in your suffering, but in your freedom.

And everyone who suffers a lot reminds me of everyone else who suffers a lot reminds me of everyone else who suffers.

But everyone who's free, they seem free in their own distinctive way.

And my pain, you know, it almost feels like, oh, that's my brand, you know, that's so intimately

me.

It's not self.

Same old story actually locks up our uniqueness.

Ben Lerner said, nothing's a cliche when you're living it.

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