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

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Connecting to how you are in this moment, the feelings, the experience of this moment,

whatever is happening in this moment, body sensations, breath, movements of emotions or thoughts.

With mindfulness, with awareness, which is what we're cultivating in this practice of meditation,

we can open to everything that's happening in our present moment experience.

Be aware of how you are in this moment.

That may be a sense of a broad sense of how you are, of how you're feeling, of how the body is.

Or it may be that something specific, a particular area of the body or particular emotion or mood is drawing your attention.

That's okay.

I'm just starting with opening to how you are, acknowledging that.

So a good place to begin our meditation is just a kind of take stock of what's here.

Some of you may notice a little bit of tension or pull or some kind of resistance.

If you aren't experiencing that and it just feels relaxed and at ease, just let yourself take that in.

And if there is some kind of tension or resistance, just exploring.

Maybe there can be a little bit of relaxation. Maybe the body can relax.

Maybe the breathing can relax.

Maybe the stomach can relax.

Maybe the face, the hips, the whole body can relax.

Sometimes as you may be connected with a little bit of relaxation of body.

You might notice that the mind is flitting here and there, thinking this, jumping around with attention from thing to thing.

You can just notice that.

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