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

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Thank you.

So thinking is an essential part of human experience.

And when we people begin exploring the mind, they soon find out that the mind has a mind of its own.

And then most of the thoughts we have arise automatically, just one after another.

And it's easy to believe that that's just the way our mind is, that all we can do is subservate.

And sometimes thoughts are just really strange, too.

You know, I know if you think about our dreams, which are kinds of thoughts, you know, they can be quite unusual. But in addition to observing our experience, the Buddha taught us to take responsibility for our thinking,

and that when our thinking is harmful to us to purposely change it.

And the essential part of the Eightfold Path is the sixth step or wise effort. A simple way of describing wise effort is that it's the effort to let go of any unwholesome thoughts and states

and to cultivate the wholesome and helpful ones.

The unwholesome thoughts and states are thoughts that are based on ill will or greed.

And the helpful ones are the ones that are based on goodwill, generosity, love, compassion.

So because we tend to teach that mindfulness is being with our experience just as it is,

allowing things to be,

a non-reactive awareness, a letting go.

Sometimes we might not give attention to the other side of vice effort,

the part that stresses the cultivation of these wholesome thoughts and states that support our wholesome thoughts and states.

And this mindfulness practice needs both of them,

letting go of the unwholesome and the nurturing of the wholesome.

Of course, just by meditating regularly and paying attention to the mind, we're already

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