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

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So hello and welcome to this, now the seventh talk on the Samadhi series.

And a lot of our success in being able to cultivate samadhi, the unified state of beings, it has a lot to do with how well we know

ourselves. That if we know ourselves well, entering into these states of concentration,

absorption, doesn't have to be an act of will, doesn't have to be an act of will.

It doesn't have something that we force ourselves into

or strain to enter into.

But rather, it's a profound settling in.

It's a profound kind of entering into a new mode of being.

But it really requires understanding ourselves well.

And one of the things to understand is what happens to our mind,

or thinking mind, our mind, when we get distracted,

when we get pulled into obsessive thinking.

And I began this week with the discussion about the first two hindrances, desire and aversion.

And today I'll continue with that with the second, the third and fourth hindrances, which is usually

called sloth and torpor as the third, and restlessness and remorse or restlessness and

agitation, worry, as the fourth.

And what all these hindrances have in common,

and partly why they're so hindering for us,

is they involve mental preoccupation.

They involve thinking,

...