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

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

Good morning everyone and good day and happy to be here with you.

I'm also happy to be here with myself at the appreciation of our ability to be present for ourselves.

It is a wonderful appreciation and to value that and to feel like we are worthy.

We are valuable, we are worthy of attention.

And for people interested in being compassionate, we have a lot more compassion or the compassion is fuller or maybe even cleaner if the agent of compassion, namely each of us.

Holds ourselves or sees ourselves with a certain value and worthiness and dignity.

If we inhabit ourselves fully or appreciate ourselves as a simplicity of being a human being,

maybe not necessarily for our accomplishments or all kinds of worldly values, but just a deep appreciation of our values as a human being.

If we have that kind of respect for ourselves, then when we are able to bring compassion to someone else, we bring that along.

And it conveys more value, the compassion conveys more value.

There is like a fuller compassion, the person who is offering compassion, then is more present, more the person is there.

The person is not apologizing for themselves or not hiding themselves, not doing things kind of half-hearted because they don't think that they are important enough to do something.

It is easier to be a wholehearted fullness of presence with brings more presence into the compassion, brings a lot of different wonderful things into the compassion.

This idea of respecting ourselves, respecting this human being, that we have the role of inhabiting, living with for this lifetime.

So, to begin our meditation, with care, respect for this human being, that you are being careful with the posture you take.

So that the posture, you kind of spend some time moving around little bit, wiggling, swaying, looking until you find the posture that seems lined and balanced and feels right for you to inhabit, to live in the embodied posture.

And gently closing your eyes, and perhaps with care, respect for yourself, to take a few long, slow deep breaths.

We feel our body more fully when we breathe in deeply, and as we feel our body, feel it with respect, exhale with care and respect.

Letting your breathing return to normal.

And as a form of respect and care, as a way of becoming more whole, as you exhale, continue to relax the face, the eyes.

...