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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So hello and welcome to this 21st talk on samadhi, the phenomenally useful ability to be happily absorbed in an activity.

Absorbed as a state of being absorbed, connected.

And this is one of the gifts that can happen in meditation.

And it's a state that as somebody develops,

that involves a lot of pleasure. Some of that pleasure can be experienced as gladness,

comfort, some of it as joy, sometimes as happiness. Some people will describe it as

some of it when it gets intense as a rapture and bliss.

And when the Buddha was searching for a path to awakening,

there's a story that's told that he remembered being a child and being left in a safe place while the

adults were working on, or doing the spring plowing festival in the field, and he was in the

edge of the field under a tree. It's kind of lovely that the record of what tree it was. It was a rose

apple tree. And somehow, watching the events around him, he got very calm and settled and peaceful

and in a way that was noticeable

and felt a lot of joy and happiness.

And then he entered into a state of samadhi

that was very enjoyable.

And he remembered having that as a child, as an adult, and he said, wait a minute, maybe this is the way forward, maybe this is the way to freedom.

He had been doing asceticism where he was denying himself and experiencing tremendous amount of pain intentionally.

And he had realized that that wasn't going to lead to his awakening.

And in ancient India, to feel pleasure was considered a little bit taboo among religious people,

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