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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org. Good morning, everyone, our good day, welcome to our good day, welcome to our morning or meditation on this 24th of December.

And what I'd like to evoke for this day is the general attitude of friendliness.

Friendliness in the most ordinary ways, the ways to be friendly to someone.

And a stranger, maybe, in a public space, maybe the person in front of you in the grocery store who, in line,

and maybe they drop one of their purchases on the floor. You'd pick it up for them and hand it to

them and they say thank you. And the exchange is all ordinary, simple friendliness.

Nothing really required more than just the act.

Maybe opening the door for someone.

Again, maybe a stranger.

Maybe opening the door for a stranger and wishing them well.

Have a good day.

Please. And so, the idea of friendliness. And maybe there's a simpler word

that you might like to use. I don't know if kindness is simpler. Maybe a simple goodwill, a general sense of well-wishing, an attitude of

well-wishing rather than the attitude of ill-will or suspicion or fear. And so to have that as the basis

for meditation,

there are some people who will do meta meditation, meditation on goodwill,

for the first few minutes of meditation,

to set the stage, set the foundation,

for meditation itself to be a very simple act of goodwill, of friendliness,

to oneself or to one's experience as one is meditating.

A friendly attitude towards breathing, friendly attitude to discomfort in the body,

...