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

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So... So, one of the things that, one of the things that arose for me when I did Buddhist monastic training is that I am most myself when I'm responding to the world

from a deep source inside.

That I am not myself alone,

you know, in privacy of just sitting around

just twiddling my thumbs.

But there's something about being available and present and open

not being defined by the world, not being defined by anything but being available in some deep way to

respond to whatever is happening in the moment the that there's something powerful about the responsibility that I'm capable of, we're capable of

of being attuned, tuning in, being present, registering, and something inside kind of responds to the world.

And so how do we respond?

And so with that in mind I think I'll just respond to your questions.

Maybe some of you have questions he'd like to ask. That seemed like they might be relevant to ask me. Thank you. And I'm like you hold it like this. Hello, good morning, good afternoon.

Yes, he turned up.

We just bit at that because I don't have my hearing aids on, so let him turn

up the volume.

Good afternoon. I've been following you for a while and I've

listening to the 7 a.m. meditation along with you. I've been doing it for a bit and then I fell off the meditation track.

So the question that I have for you is, how do we keep consistent in the practice?

How do we get ourselves to just stay with the practice?

That's the hardest part for me is I do it and I feel good and then I'm off the track. How do we stay consistent?

...