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

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One of the things that I see as I look around the room at all of you that looks to me like none of you are monastics.

I don't see any monastic robes, shaved heads.

It looks to me like most of you are pretty much what we call lay people.

And so I think that's great.

And there are some people who think that if you're going to get serious about Buddhism, you should become a monastic.

And then some spouses or partners sometimes worry about people who are meditating too much that are they going to go off and become a monk or a nun and you know and abandon the world?

Some people do that.

Hopefully that's the right thing for them to do.

But what I want to say is that

if any of you have ever thought about you know maybe I should go off and

become a monastic or that's where the real practice is where you are.

The real practice is the life that you have.

And in fact, it might be the best place for you to practice.

To run away from it and to go someplace else sometimes is we'll miss a huge opportunity. I've lived in monasteries, I've benefited from being a monk, so it's also a nice life.

But a good monastery, maybe from the outside looks like it's an angelic place.

Everyone must be on floating on clouds, must be enlightened,

and everyone is always kind and loving and and there's lots of time and

everybody stays calm and just kind of floats and things get done but you know

everyone just kind of like you know somehow things get done but everyone's just

kind of floating and just doing things slowly mindfully and and they're studying and listening to great

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