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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time zone you might be in this moment in time.

I am in the European time zone and I'm zooming in,

YouTubeing in from Tuscany in Italy.

You hear the church bells and there was a bit of a hiccup with internet.

So started the YouTube a bit late, but right now we're right on time, 7 a.m. California time,

4 p.m. Italian time. So it's wonderful to see you, wonderful to sit with you.

I'm excited to be teaching this week, supporting Giel and being away, supporting the Sangha.

And I'm excited about the theme this week. And the theme is the theme of Concord and Harmony.

And we'll flow this week with teachings about friendship, Kalianamita.

How are we a good friend for others, friendship, those aspects of

harmony, harmony in community, in friendships, in relationships, the relational aspect. I know that

Gil has been teaching for many weeks now on samadhi, very dear to my heart.

And when he comes back, he'll teach about vipasana.

And here, I figured we'll bring in some of the relational aspects of practice this week together.

Because they're very, very important.

As the Buddha said, spiritual friendship is not half of the holy life.

I'll talk about this more.

It's not half of this spiritual life.

It's the entire, it's 100% of spiritual life, of this practice.

So I'll say a lot more, of course, well, 15 minutes worth of a Darmat, but let's,

...