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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

Thank you. So hello and welcome.

And here we are in our meditation session.

And one of the arts of samadhi is the careful

orientation towards pleasure

and underneath this

or more fundamental

is the way that mindfulness practice

Buddhist practice is meant to be a very realistic

understanding, seeing, acknowledgement of suffering, of our difficulties.

And to see them clearly, one of the ways to care for it is not to do so directly,

but to do it indirectly through the path of samadhi.

And that should be done carefully and wisely,

not as aversion to our difficulties,

but rather with a care for them, a love for them, love for ourselves.

And so the orientation towards pleasure is in a way it's done with a gentle message

that you care for yourself, you care for the suffering,

and this is a way of doing it.

And then to be modest in the orientation towards pleasure.

And when we first sit down, it might be to notice just the relief

of sitting down after maybe a busy day

...