The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

The first talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

So welcome.

Begin this talk sharing with you about a conference I presented at some years back.

This is a run by Tricycle, which is a Buddhist magazine and online forum.

And I was invited to be part of the opening presentation.

They had a line above us and we're each asked to address a key question in spiritual life, which is what really allows people to heal and awaken to come into freedom.

And we're each asked to give 10 minutes to that.

Now just a little background. This Tricycle conference was held at the World Trade Center.

This was two weeks before 9-11.

So here we were.

And so I was in this line up of five presenters and they were all very, very well known.

I was and I was the only woman and they put me as the second person, which I thought was great, because it gave me 10 minutes to kind of collect my thoughts and come into presence.

I thought it was not too long to go insane, you know, with nervousness.

So there it was. And the first person to speak was Richard Baker-Roshi, who's the Dharma hair to Suzuki-Roshi, who I admired greatly.

So he got up and his, he began saying, transformation or awakening come sound two things. Intention and attention.

And he said, you know, I don't know.

And I said, you know, it's my turn. I wanted to get up and say, like he said, you know, I have no idea what I said.

But I really remember what he said.

And really his teaching is going to be what we'll be exploring tonight, which is really how the path of healing is energized and guided by inner self.

Intention and the path of freedom is energized and guided by intention.

And there's a kind of virtual, virtuous cycle that happens, which is that when we have the intention to wake up, to our meditating, we have the intention to notice what's happening, we notice more.

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