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

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There. Here we go.

So hello and welcome everyone.

It's wonderful to be with you, this community that comes together from around the world cultivating our hearts and kindness and

goodwill and for the sake of ourselves and for the sake of others.

As I shared on Monday last week,

I was leading a residential silent retreat at Spirit Rock and teaching with my dear friend and teacher

Sylvia Borstein and friend and in her

in her teachings it's so beautiful in her teachings she infuses

meta kindness just infused with everything she says she does is just such a

beautiful inspiring way that she shows up and and that's who she is it's how she

who she has become. And one sentence that she shared in her teachings,

she repeated that multiple times.

It really struck me, really struck me. And that sentence, that sentiment is, which is so true, is,

I am the principal beneficiary of my own goodwill, of my own kindness.

I am the principal beneficiary of my own goodwill.

That struck me because it is true. It is so true. We often think we're cultivating kindness as we do for other beings. May you be well, may you be happy, we cultivate compassion for other beings who are suffering, and of course, it might seem that we are and we truly are.

Others benefit as well. People in our lives, people around us, our

loved ones, our family, our friends.

and people at the grocery store, the checkout counter, people behind us in the line, people who are driving with us on the highway. People benefit, of course they benefit from our own goodwill, but we benefit the most.

We are the principal beneficiary of our own goodwill.

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