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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So... So, I was quite touched by the different practice discussions I had today. And one of the themes that ran through them was that a refuge.

A number of people brought that up.

And then I reflected upon a little bit just now

of a conversation I had last week with someone

who was deeply steeped in the world of the study, the field of psychotherapy.

And he told me that one of the really important insights apparently that they have in modern

psychotherapy is that most the therapeutic, psychologically

problems or psychological problems that people have that therapy is supposed to address

is exasperated or strengthened or comes to be because people spend too much time

thinking about themselves.

And there's a way in which it's very easy to get on the bandwagon of self-reflection.

And there's something about that reflection that's a little bit addictive

or very much kind of self-propelling.

It's kind of like we think something about ourselves that's uncomfortable.

And then there's a reaction to the discomfort,

like this is something wrong here or something wrong with me,

and I have to consider it and reflect on it.

And then the very idea that something's wrong with me doesn't feel good.

And there we have more not feeling good.

And that prompts more self-concerned about, I have to fix what's not good about me.

...