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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. Hello and welcome

welcome to our meditation session and this week we're focusing on what hinders our ability to be mindful,

present steady in our practice.

And today, the topic is the second hindrance, which is a version.

It's usually translated into English in our kind of Buddhist scene as aversion.

Though the poly word more accurately means ill will, so it contains a certain degree of hostility in it.

So it's more than simply not wanting something, but rather it's pushing something away or pulling away in a way that is hostile or has

animosity in it towards whatever is going on.

And to understand this better,

we can distinguish two kinds of averting, two ways of saying no. One is with love and the other is with hatred.

And one is with goodwill or kindness or well-wishing, and the other is with wishing ill for something or someone.

Another is with hostility, with some degree of animosity.

And the difference between these is huge,

and how it can feel inside us is different.

That when there's a feeling of free-loving feeling,

a love that doesn't contain clinging as part of it.

There's no compulsion in the love.

It's just a generosity, love which is generous. It can be a strong

no to something. And when the no is hostile, it comes with tension, with strain, with a closing down,

with tightening of the fist and the heart or the mind let alone the physical hand and to be able to

feel the difference. One is nurturing, nourishing, one is, might be energizing,

...