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

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So good morning, everyone. Can you hear me all right?

Loud enough.

Speak up if it gets too soft, my voice.

Or wave your hands.

So,

there was a time when I was in conversations where the question was, is Buddhism a religion or not?

And it made some sense to have those questions, because oddly enough for me, who my background is,

I have a PhD in religion. So, and that's the area where,

you know, where that question comes up, you know. And I was there studying Buddhist studies,

so was I in the right place. And oddly for me, because I did not grow up religious, and oddly enough being,

you know, maybe now you're all abandoned IMC, but in some ways I'm not so interested in religion,

in some ways, maybe. Maybe it doesn't look like that. And, but, uh, so is Buddhism a religion or not? So there's

all kinds of questions, debates about that. And the funnest way of referring to that, the kind

of humorous way, I think, maybe, is that it definitely is in United States because then you get

all kinds of tax benefits. Whereas I was told in the Soviet Union, it was definitely not a religion

because there were benefits because they were back then kind of anti-religion.

So Buddhism was quite flexible that way.

And but I think what's more interesting for me

as I've navigated my own practice in Buddhism

and practiced in different schools of Buddhism

...