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

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Hello, everyone, and welcome.

And here to the meditation that's part of a longer series that sets the context for today.

And part of the more recent context is a...

What?

...is a... And part of the more recent context is a deeper engagement, deeper reflection, exploration, deeper

discovery of wise ways of practicing with suffering, with stress, with de-stress,

with the emotional tensions that we carry through our days.

And there's a number of purposes for this.

One is so that we can discover profound, satisfying, healthy happiness

that can be an alternative to suffering

and also can be a partner to certain forms of suffering that we have.

Suffering is not a mistake to have to experience. There's all kinds of emotional pains that come with being human.

But there's also what we add,

and it's the, what we add unnecessarily,

that is a big part of what we're kind of working with in Buddhism.

So what I'd like to suggest that one of the important areas of practice is, the opportunities

with mindfulness practice, is to be able to suffer without making anything of it.

To feel our emotional distress, emotional pain, to feel our physical pain, to feel the challenges

we have. And of course, there are times we should adjust and change and fix certain things.

But when we come to meditation, one of the great opportunities here is to discover a kind of freedom that comes when we don't have to do anything about it.

...