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

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Hello and welcome. Hello and welcome. And as we begin, I'm reminded of a story told of the Zen teachers Shunariu Suzuki-Iroshi in maybe in the 1960s when he came to United States.

And he was asked by someone by student or someone interested in Zen,

If I practice Zen, will I become enlightened?

And Suzuki-Roshi answered, if your practice is sincere, it's almost as good. And this idea that

sincere practice is as good as or almost as good as awakening.

I think a remarkable statement.

And to be sincere,

I understand is to give oneself kind of wholeheartedly

to the practice with a certain humility,

a certain giving oneself over to it,

but without straining or without conceit,

without trying to attain awakening,

even though that's the purpose of it, a sincere engagement with a process

just for its own sake in this moment. I think of sincerity as being, having very closely related

to honesty, an honest understanding of how we operate, what drives us,

what our challenges are, and to hold that with a certain humility, a certain non-reactivity,

and that in the end, there is a learning to give up, give away, cease,

all the efforts in the mind, the heart, the body maybe, all the efforts that are not needed.

All the reactions, all the judgments, all the trying to make something happen,

build something up, try to avoid something, try to fix something,

...