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

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Greetings, friends.

It's a lovely afternoon here in Tuscany, and it was nice to start with the bells with the church bell.

So hello, hello. Good morning, good afternoon.

Bonjourna, bono serra. Whatever time zone you're in, wherever in this beautiful world of ours you're in.

As I say that, I think of the lyrics,

what a wonderful world.

You know, it's a challenging world.

It's a beautiful world.

It's 10,000 joys, 10,000 sorrows.

So wonderful to be with you in this moment in time as we come together in this community,

in this beautiful community that we have.

We've come together as maybe you've been coming to this teaching for many,

many sessions, many weeks, many years, or if you're new, welcome, welcome. Let's welcome ourselves.

Let's welcome each other. I so appreciate the spirit of

welcoming and welcoming each other as I see in the chat, all the good mornings and good

afternoons and all the greetings. So, so continuing with our theme this week, the theme of Sangha, one of the triple jewels, one of the most important aspect of practice, community, friendship, spiritual friendship, noble friendship, good friendship,

Kalianamita, good friendship.

And we've been practicing in those aspects the past couple of days, and today I want to

continue with this theme.

And today I want to explore the theme of ethical empathy, which is the foundation of a friendship, of kindness, of meta, of compassion, which is putting ourselves in someone else's shoes.

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