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Tonight I'd like to begin the discussion of the second step on the noble eightfold path.

In Polly, this is called Samma Sankapa and it's usually translated as right thought or right

intention sometimes as right resolve or right aspiration.

And tonight in the context of this talk,

I'll be using all of these terms synonymously, interchangeably.

The importance of this step, right thought, is highlighted by one simple, obvious, but often overlooked truth,

namely an understanding of the great power of habit and habitual tendencies in the

unfolding of our lives. There's a contemporary biologist named Rupert Shell Drake.

And he makes this point in a theory which he promotes,

which he says

calls morphic resonance.

And in it he says that the more the habits of different species are repeated,

the more probable they become.

The more they repeated the more probable they become.

So likewise, the more we repeat certain kinds of thoughts, certain kinds, certain patterns of thought.

The more often we repeat them, the more probable it is that they will arise again.

So given that our actions are conditioned by how we think about ourselves and how we think about the world.

So our actions are conditioned by thoughts.

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