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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

Yes, so I'm here at IRC, the retreat center in Santa Cruz, California.

And I'm here for a two-day program that I'm helping to teach with Andrea Fella.

And 15 people were training to be inside teachers. And we're coming to the end of the four-year

training. And it's been quite special to be here and special to be here with the

volunteers the residents and it's a really a special place to be and some of you maybe have been here

some of you maybe will think of coming on retreat here so so welcome and happy new year.

And here at the beginning of the year, I'll start a extended series on samadhi.

It's kind of provisionally, it's called concentration practice, concentration,

states of concentration. And I almost prefer not to use that word because it, often associations

with it are very different than what is being cultivated when we cultivate samadhi.

And then, so there'll be what we'll do in the meditations and the 15-minute talks

will kind of very slowly kind of build up the foundational elements for samadhi.

And whether you get concentrated in a way that we

call samadhi or not i'm hoping that in the process of this you'll learn a lot about your capacity

of attention and how to harness attention for yourself rather than having it hijacked by all the

different forces, growing forces in our society that are trying to keep your attention hostage,

keep it busy, keep it activated. There's a whole attention economy now that I never would have imagined could have existed.

So for the meditation this morning, as a beginning for this whole adventure in Samadhi,

meditation, a good way of beginning all meditation,

and then, you know, getting a foundation for meditation and mindfulness, meditation and concentration,

...