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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So as I said at the beginning of the guided meditation,

that rather than I'm taking the like thea in a poem, today we're looking, the Dorma being expressed as a poem, a Dermra practitioner, somebody describing her practice with this in poetry, which, you know, sometimes it's like we can't find the words.

Maybe it's not so clear.

I know I've been in, I've offered practice discussions,

and I've been a student in practice discussions,

where the practitioner is like, can't quite find the words exactly,

how to express what's happening. And so maybe like poetry is a way in which

we can use a different way to express we can use it you know so to recognize the to point indirectly

to what's being known or what's being experienced.

So this poem is called My Religion, by Ayah Medan and Dee.

And maybe before I read the poem, I'll say a little bit about the person who wrote it so she is a person

that was born in Canada maybe I'll say a little bit about her name so her ordination

name so she's a Canadian made on andy is her ordination name. Ayah means sister. So this is something

that's given to nuns in our tradition. Instead of like Biku, she would, is Ayah here. And Medanandi, her her name means we could say it's like meda is

wise and anandhi is a joy wise joy or the way that polly works it could also be the joy of

wisefulness or uh the joy of wisdom,

wisefulness, I mean, I up a new word there.

But I don't know, I love these two qualities.

Wisdom, sometimes it can be translated as intelligence,

but I think wisdom and joy.

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