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

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Consider practicing here today. A very interesting concept for

mindfulness practice is a idea of a ballast. The sailboat, the ballast of the boat, is this keel that goes down into the water

that usually has some weight in it called the ballast. And so when the wind pushes above water pushes a sail this way or that way or the book gets rocked by the waves back and forth,

that the deep weight that's in the keel under the water writes it up. It's a balance so it goes one way and that the weight of the thing on the bottom keeps it from tipping over all the way and actually brings it back into center.

And so we can have a ballast.

And we can have a reference point inside

that gives a sense of stability or is a kind of a little bit

of a counter force to being tipped over or getting caught up in our reactivity being pushed

around by the world or caught in the world.

And different people at different times

can have different place inside that is their ballast.

But you might want to consider where there's a place,

some place inside where there's a feeling of stability

or it could even be a little bit feeling of weight,

but a feeling of calm,

of stillness or steadiness,

that you can find inside of you.

Even if you're agitated generally,

there might be someplace inside. When people are standing or walking,

sometimes the ballast can be the feet,

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