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

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Hello and welcome to this fourth guided meditation on mindfulness of emotions.

And what I'd like to start with today is using a kind of an analogy.

We can say in English, we use a distinction between the words listening and hearing.

Someone might direct you to listen to something and then intentionally you turn your attention to listening to.

And you can hear something without the intention to hear.

And these two words overlap,

but hearing is more likely used

for something which is more receptive and may be unintentional, we hear a sound,

then we're interested in what it's going on and so we listen carefully.

And the listening is the more, the effort to be engaged. and the

same thing is the more the effort to be engaged. The same thing with seeing and looking.

Someone doesn't say, someone might say see here, but if you're more, the usual instructions is to look.

And so in the way I'm talking about today, trying to highlight the difference between two different ways of using our eyes to see, one is more a natural receptivity where we see what's happening without trying to see,

and the other is seeing, trying to see intentionally to look.

And so when we practice meditation,

both are activated and both are fine, there is a kind of orientation or leaning towards the part that is more receptive, more not trying to make something happen.

So if we're sensing the body breathing,

if we're sensing the body sensations the idea is to not be so much in the

control tower trying to sense or making kind of an extra mental effort to really feel well what's going on.

But rather to put ourselves in a situation where we can really sense, receive in an open way the sensations.

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