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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So good morning everyone and everyone.

And, um, so one of the tasks as we develop meditation practice, Buddhist practice, is to become our

own teachers.

To be able, and what that means partly is to be able and what that means partly is to be able to find the path of practice as it

opens up in front of us. A metaphor is that if you're going to cross, maybe it's a somewhat

shallow river, wide river and there's lots of rocks and boulders in it that are stepping stones

across the river that the and the stepping stones are kind of spread a little bit different distance from each

other and different angles. Some rocks are clearly not stable enough to step on.

So you would have to kind of find your way across the river on these stepping stones and go this way and that way and a little bit

longer steps sometimes and make sure you stand in the middle of some

steps some stones and you have to find your own path across by choosing the

right stones to walk on. And if you don't you might end up in the river.

And maybe if the shallow river it's easy enough to get back up again.

So in the same way, we're kind of finding their path

and falling into the river is falling into our thoughts

and preoccupations and attachments

reactivity falling into great hate and delusion and crawling into preoccupations with me, myself and mine.

And to find the path, find the stepping stones,

next moment, next moment, is to find ourselves

in the simplicity of awareness,

the simplest kind of awareness. of

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