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

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Good to be with all of you again in this virtual Sanga.

So welcome, everyone.

For many of us here, it might be particularly prominent in our minds and hearts that things in the world are not the way we want all of you again in this spiritual song.

I had to meet myself.

That things in the world are not the way we want them today.

And it can be helpful to remember the teaching that if we're only free when things are the way we want them, they were not really free.

It can call in us to practice more diligently,

to practice with even more care,

with more kindness and compassion,

to not add any more suffering to this world.

In my first few years of meditation,

I found that it would take me a while for my mind to settle,

especially if there's a lot going on in my life, days like today.

So I accepted the idea that the first 15 minutes, the mind would be restless, and that usually after about 15 minutes would calm.

I relaxed about it, but also what I didn't realize is that I was ignoring those first 15 minutes as not worthy of my careful attention. I had a preconception

that there wasn't anything worthwhile to pay attention to in those first 15 minutes.

So why bother with the effort?

But I eventually came to realize the truth of the teaching that if we're only free when things are the way we want them, then we're not really free.

So as my own practice continued to mature, things are the way we want them, then we're not really free.

So as my own practice continued to mature,

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