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

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Your name, welcome. Good morning.

Welcome, welcome.

Today is our fifth day, Friday,

in this series about stories.

And I'd like to start this morning,

the conversation, the offering, with a poem.

And this poem is by Rosemary Tramer,

this beautiful, wonderful poet who lives in Colorado.

And, uh, and this. lives in Colorado. And this poem is entitled Sometimes Like Today We Remember. Again this is Rosemary Trauma and the first the title of the poem leads right into the second line of the poem and I know sometimes people like what was the name of that poem so I'm going to say it one more time

Sometimes like today we remember that everyone, even the driver in the white jeep who cut in front of you. Yes, even an elegant

woman in the dairy aisle and the man who seems lost on the library steps and the child sitting

alone on the bench, yes, everyone has a story.

Fears and hopes and something to learn and someone they love and someone who's hurt them and someone they long to hold.

And though their stories are mostly invisible, they're always more complex than

whatever we project.

And they're every bit as real as our own.

The woman in the dairy aisle smiles at you.

And though she is wearing diamonds in her ears, she looks lonely.

Or is it you who is lonely? Is it all of us? All of us longing for someone to truly see us.

And that driver you're cursing,

...