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

Please visit our website at audiodarma.org.

Good morning everyone and welcome to IMC I'm delighted that you're here and we get to be

together and one of the purposes of Darma talks is to teach about the practice of mindfulness,

practice of the darma practice.

And so we might talk about meditation,

we might talk about mindfulness in daily life,

we might talk about the practices of ethics,

all kinds of things.

And one of the principles of mindfulness is everything is practice. So one of the very important practices in Buddhism is the practice of listening to a darma talk, which is what we'll talk about today.

And so one of the interesting things about talking about

Darma talks, the practice of listening to a talk

is that all of you, for the most part,

are going to be listening to this darma talk.

And so it's about you and you're listening.

So I want to read a little story from this book, The Monastery Within, a monastery Within.

A young woman from another country moved with her family to live for one year in a town near the monastery.

When in the course of the year she discovered the monastery, she would periodically visit to have discussions with the Abbis.

The Abbis introduced her to meditation, which became very meaningful for the young woman.

When the family's one year long stay was drawing to an end,

the young woman said,

ask the Abbiss,

...