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

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So hello and welcome to this 23rd, the 24th talk, I think, 23rd talk on samad,

23rd talk on samadhi.

And this week the topic is the pleasure of samadhi and pleasure takes different forms at

different times sometimes it can feel like pure pleasure and um you know physical pleasure

and but it also can morph into a and, you know, physical pleasure.

But it also can morph into the pleasure of delight,

the pleasure of gladness, the pleasure of joy,

the pleasure of happiness, the pleasure of tranquility,

the pleasure of equanimity, the pleasure of release and freedom,

and the pleasure of refuge, pleasure of knowing, we have a home that brings a certain degree of safety and care, orientation, meaning to this life of ours, all kind of aspects of refuge.

And so pleasure is an important part of Dharma practice, and maybe we can call it Dharma pleasure.

And in the teachings and mindfulness, the Buddha makes a distinction between two kinds of

pleasure. There's a pleasure that comes from, that we might want to call sensual pleasure if we understand it to be

that our senses are being stimulated by an external source.

And so if I eat a tasty food, that would be called sensual pleasure in the taste because it comes from the food.

If I stand in the warm sun on a cold day and feel the pleasure of that,

that would be called sensual pleasure because it comes from outside and touches the nerve endings

and does something nice.

If we're thinking about things, there's a way in which the thinking mind represents almost like something outside of ourselves.

I can have a fantasy about something, and the fantasy can bring a lot of pleasure.

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