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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. Hello my friends and it's special for me and maybe all of us to gather for this

meditation thank you for being here. So today I would like to

associate meditation with something that perhaps is seldom associated with, but I think that we, as many of

us at times will definitely bring this quality to it and that is courage.

Meditation sometimes needs courage.

It's often associated with meditation about being

calm, relaxed, unassertive, being quiet, peaceful, and so, and maybe also with disassociated with being, Maybe even kind of docile or something.

But sometimes we need to have courage and sometimes a lot of courage and

certainly the courage takes a lot of courage in life to sometimes be ethical.

Sometimes they take courage to not give in to expressions of hostility or anger, not give into strong compulsive desires

that we might have. And that can play out in meditation as well.

That we take our place and show up to be here.

We take our place and show up to be here in a clear and courageous way so we don't give in to

distractions. We don't give in to the distractions that keep us from

recognizing what's really happening here in important ways, that we don't give in to

avoid the difficult emotions that we have but to show up to our grief, our fears, even our angers, to really be honest about them and show up and take our place in the

middle of them.

Sometimes we talk about sitting in the fire when meditating. So we have I have behind me a statue of the Buddha the night of his

awakening and his posture that's dignified and upright is a posture that represents taking one's place in a dignified, clear,

complete way that you're allowed to inhabit the place where you're practicing.

Like you can be there. You don't have to diminish yourself or apologize for yourself

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