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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

So welcome again. Welcome all of you.

I'm happy to be back with you again, sharing the Dharma with all of you.

It just warms my heart to see many familiar names over here on the chat and also just being aware

of how far and wide this online Sanga extends.

It's very moving to me.

So the focus this week will be on the various aspects of mindful thinking.

Before we begin the meditation, I want to share a few thoughts about thinking.

And most of us like feeling calm and not having a lot of thoughts running around the mind.

And because of that, it's easy to judge thinking and meditation as being undesirable.

But we all think it's important not to place thinking outside of the meditation process.

But what we want to do is encourage thoughts that are helpful to us and discourage thoughts that are harmful to us.

Thinking can be a wonderful tool in meditation.

We use thoughts to bring us back when we're distracted, to remind us to relax the body when we're tense,

to encourage ourselves,

to recognize the hindrances when they arise.

We might use thoughts to guide ourselves to look deeper, to explore, to investigate,

or just encourage ourselves to persevere.

But thinking, like many tools, can also be used unskilfully,

such as habitually judging ourselves and others,

getting lost in regrets, in useless planning, in worry,

...