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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. So, Hello everyone and welcome and And I was just looking out the window here, there's very high windows here looking up at the

sky through the windows and the clouds that are here and

and

and um if the begins to rain If the

begins to rain, then first there has to be the clouds.

The clouds are the condition for the rain.

And the idea of conditionality,

that things appear because of other conditions that have to be there

is a central feature in Buddhism that's a central feature in Buddhism that's one of the purposes of which is to help us

break through the break out of the delusion of permanence that something is there forever it's

and the delusion of self that many of us will live under and the particular delusion of self is the idea

that there is a permanent self that anything defines us in a permanent way. And there's a movement in the mind of attachment that is very closely connected

to the ideas of self, ideas of permanent selves, this is who I am, and the ideas that something

is fixed. And so in meditation practice

one of the ways that the teachings on conditionality can function,

can support meditation

is that when you're aware of something occurring in the present moment,

whatever it is, that experience is a conditioned experience.

Certain conditions have come together to bring forth this particular thing. But now that you're aware of it, now that you really

see it and know what it is that's happening, you've introduced a new condition into the ecosystem,

into the moment.

...