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

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Okay, so as usual, when I've been gone for a while,

I don't push all the buttons, right?

So now I think everything, all the buttons is set.

So welcome.

And what I'd like to do this week is to go back to basics.

And it's always a good idea to start over, come back to basics,

and build the practice, build our world from the basics.

So for the meditation, at least, what I'd like to do is most basic is mindfulness of breathing.

And mindfulness of breathing in the teachings of the Buddha comes along with three steps, a number of steps,

but the three that I'll emphasize.

One is, he says, that as one breathes mindfully and feels one's body,

one can calm the body, calm the bodily agitation.

And then he says that as we're breathing, we can calm the mental agitation, calm the mind.

And by implication, it also is, well, let me say differently. And the third thing he says that as we're breathing, we can please the mind, we can satisfy the mind.

And one way that this happens is we can please the mind or satisfy the mind or inspire the mind

by a third form of calming. And that is, we can calm mindfulness itself and calm the way that we are aware.

As we know what's happening in the present, we can know calmly.

As we feel what's happening in the present, we can feel calmly.

The body and the mind might still be agitated,

but we can be aware of the agitation with a calm awareness,

...