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

Please visit our website at audiodderma.org. So good morning.

day.

Hello everyone.

And... Hello everyone and

and

one of the radical acts in any human life given the state of the world is to be

friends with everyone. Maybe it's a tall order but to be a friend with the people that we encounter.

I like to believe that a lot of what Buddhism Buddhist practice entails is in spite of us being here on

YouTube today that a lot of it is personal, it's a person-to-person meetings and in those meetings person to person meetings.

And in those meetings, may we be friends with the people we encounter.

We might not agree with them, but we can be friendly.

And so one of the people to be friendly with, with and towards, is ourselves.

And meditation can be understood as a deep practice of friendship towards yourself, a continual act of friendliness.

And if that's too high a bar or at least be safe for oneself, at least not be the

opposite of a friend. And so what would it be to be a friend

with all the complexity of who we are and our inner life, in our life experiences, and our reactions to the world. What is it to cast a wide gaze upon ourselves, such a wide gaze that we can take the whole in and view all

of it the whole and a friendly way.

And one of the purposes of this, many purposes,

is that the attitudes with which we

move through the world

affects our breathing.

...