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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So hello and welcome to the fourth of the ten reflections that this series is focused on and the fourth one is

is autonomy so So to review, there was,

this week, yesterday it was a sense of agency. So first meaning, then purpose, and then with that it makes

sense to act in the world. And so to have the ability to act,

to ability to have agency to act

according to what's important for us,

our values, our sense of purpose,

is an essential human need and when that is inhibited, broken, made difficult, denied, it's profoundly difficult for a human being.

And to support people in their agencies and empowerment is one of the gifts that we can offer others.

To believe in people, to have confidence in them.

Some people grew up without anyone believing in them

in their capacity, their ability. And then the fourth is autonomy.

And autonomy is very important in hospitals,

medical situations where a patient is, doctors are constantly supposed to think about how to respect the

autonomy of the patient, meaning their ability to make decisions for themselves.

And I think we have a profound need to feel like we have a choice

and the choice is not taken away from us by other people who choose for us and

and to not be limited and oppressed by other people's choices, but to be respected for our ability to make a choice,

our ability to do things for ourselves.

And in thinking about this, I think about growing up from birth to old age, that, you know,

before we're born and well, we're just dating and her mother that everything is kind of done for us

...