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

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

I wanted to start by letting you all know that one of the community members that appeared at this

Sangha frequently tween when passed away two weeks ago.

I think some of you may have been aware of this, but she was a regular member here.

She was a long time participant in my retreats, and I knew her quite well.

Her delight and joy in the Dharma always inspired me.

I didn't have an opportunity to speak with her before she died, but I know several of her Dharma friends had been in regular touch with her.

She was sitting with people pretty much daily, so she was in real contact with the Dharma in the community.

In touch with her family right after she died, and her family said that she really died peacefully and held by her family and friends and connected to the Dharma.

So I wanted to let you all know that this is just part of our lives that this happens.

And, you know, thinking about tween gives me a lot of remembering tween gives me a lot of joy and delight.

She was such a light presence in this world.

When I remember her, I often remember her in practice discussions where she was talking about some discovery or something new she was seeing.

And just the light in her eyes and the joy in her voice and the way she was, it was so inspiring.

I wanted to say that and just take a moment to offer some well wishes to her family.

And I don't know what twees fairing on will be or often I think people are here at least in some of the teachings of the Buddha that that moment of death can be so powerful for letting go and can be a very transformative moment of even full liberation.

So may that have happened for tween, that's my wish that she really let go deeply in that moment.

And if she is still, if the impermanent tumbling on of her experience is continuing, may that move that being, that process in the direction of freedom.

And may her family, may her family have some ease in their grief, with their grief, not to repressor deny it because that's a natural part of our process too.

And for me, the topic that feels most alive in my own practice in my own this past year is impermanence at different levels.

And so that's what I thought to begin with today, topic of impermanence.

...