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

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Chair, a few notes something to consider for this practice time.

Sometimes it's not until we sit down and begin a meditation practice or have a meditation practice

that we really start to get to know our minds, get to know our hearts, get to know ourselves in a different way.

In a way that's not necessarily reacting to all experiences or maybe you're just learning to see how you do react to experiences,

including those ones that are uncomfortable or unwanted or somehow not what you're hoping or expecting.

I like to read a poem that points to this.

After I read the poem, I'll give the title and the poet, and the poem goes like this.

Finally, on my way to yes, I bump into all the places where I used to say no to my life.

All the untended wounds, the red and purple scars, those hieroglyphs of pain carved into my skin, my bones.

Those coded messages that send me down the wrong street again and again, where I find them, the old wounds, the old misdirections.

And I lift them one by one, close to my heart, and I say, holy, holy.

What a beautiful thing to see what had been difficult in our wounds and all of us have them, right?

It's part of the human experience.

But to instead of think like, oh, I have to get rid of this, I have to make it different.

Instead, just to fold it in and say, yes, this too is part of my practice.

This too is part of my life. This too is worth respect and care.

Let's maybe I'll read this poem one more time.

Finally, on my way to yes, I bump into all the places where I said no to my life.

All the untended wounds, the red and purple scars, those hieroglyphs of pain carved into my skin, my bones.

Those coded messages that send me down the wrong street again and again, where I find them, the old wounds, the old misdirections.

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