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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So hello on this Monday morning, where we begin the second week on the theme of samadhi.

And last week was more of the preparation for it, and this week is still preparation.

Sometimes I think of the Buddhist practice, meditation practice, especially, as being kind of a pyramid

where the preparation for meditation or this beginning meditation

is creating the very thick foundation for the pyramid and that the pyramid represents how much time we spend on different things

in meditation. And we spend most of the time on setting the foundation. And so in a sense,

we're all beginners. We spend a lot of time with the beginning practice.

And then as we settle in,

and the mindfulness gets stronger

and the concentration gets more unified,

then we kind of slowly go

at higher levels of the pyramid

until we maybe occasionally get to near the top

but that's where we spend very little time

and because if you spend too much time

on the top of the pyramid,

it's a little bit like turning the pyramid upside down

and have it standing on the point,

and it's not going to be stable then.

It's going to want to come fall,

...