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

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So, hello, everyone, and welcome.

We're coming now to the end of this two-week series on the Ten Protectors,

and to begin the meditation that leads into the talk in the last protection.

I'll tell a Sufi story.

There was once a person who went to a Sufi master with a ring and said,

can you inscribe on the ring?

Some piece of wisdom that will always be useful for me to carry everywhere I go.

And so the Sufi master said, okay, and took the ring and said, come back in a week.

And after a week, the person returned and the Sufi master handed the person the ring.

And inscribed on the outside of the ring were the words, this two will pass.

This two will pass.

The Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi summarized Buddhism in three words, kind of phenomenal,

that this is three words that he thinks encapsulates all of Buddhism, not always so, not always so.

This two will pass, not always so.

It won't always be the way it is.

And so in this meditation, you might want to consider this two will pass.

And if something doesn't pass, if you have idea that something is not changing at all,

the chances are that it's a memory or an idea.

Maybe an idea that compares to what's happening now with something else.

And in a way, the memory might not be a changing thing.

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