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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome.

I think what most of you, I'm sure know, is that the primary practice that we do at IMC is mindfulness.

And what maybe you don't know is that in practicing mindfulness, we can understand

there are two different sources within us from which that practice can come. And in fact, the Buddha

repeatedly in one way or the other

distinguish between two different modalities

of engaging in the world, being in the world, understanding the world,

reflecting on the world, contemplation, all kinds of things.

And it really helps to understand this distinction.

If we don't know it, then we might be practicing mindfulness from a mode of mental life,

which is not so conducive to the depth of what's possible with mindfulness practice.

So these two different modes that the Buddha, one way or the other, talks about,

could be maybe understood in the modern world, like we have two different operating systems.

Operating system in a computer is what governs the whole computer, perhaps.

And so we have different operating systems within us, and it depends which operating system we tap into what the results are, what comes out of it.

And so the...

So, of course, they didn't have the word operating system back in the Bronze Ages when the Buddha lived.

But what he did talk about, the word that he uses to distinguish between these two is not operating system, but it's an ancient word.

You don't have to remember it, but its word is manasikara. And the kara part means to make or to do.

And the mana, manasi, refers to the mind or maybe more properly to mental processes, the mentality.

...