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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. Hello and on this Monday and happy to be sitting here and considering some darma topics to share with you.

And sometimes when people sit down to meditate,

they're supported by the idea that how lucky they are to not have to do

anything for a few moments, that maybe life is fulfilled with responsibilities, things to do, places to go,

and for a few minutes to be able to sit and not be so busy.

And it can be a phenomenal thing just to appreciate that,

to take that in.

The appreciation of that can be enough for some people to settle them and help them just relax, let go of everything.

I'd like to offer you maybe another understanding of sitting down to meditate that I'm hoping

might do have a similar effect on you, maybe even a better effect. And that is that similar to the idea of forest

bathing, you know that now it's common enough idea that coming from Japan, this idea originally

that we spent time in the forest to be nourished, to be by the atmosphere of the forests. All the different qualities that

come through the forest that we almost can take in as a bath

and be nourish us.

So meditation, it can be a very

very traditional idea in Buddhism is that to appreciate

being ethical when we are.

And when we're sitting and meditating,

even if you live an unethical life at other times, or maybe even troubled by that, that why

you sit down to meditate, it's a time when we are ethical. We are adhering to whether we know it or not

to the five ethical precepts.

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