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

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Some words for practice this morning,

as you probably know, that sometimes we human beings have a strong orientation to evaluate things either or.

It's one way or the other. So in meditation, either you're calm or you're agitated, or you're at ease and peaceful, or you're intense and troubled,

or you're happy or you're sad, or you're in pain or in bliss. You know, all kinds,

it's either one or the other. What's most interesting in meditation

in this path of mindfulness is to consider it doesn't have to be either or, it can be and.

And it's the meeting place of the two sides of these kinds of dualities that where it gets really interesting.

So if you are agitated, but you might have a little bit of calm, it's not one or the other.

You should be calm. You should not be agitated. But rather you look for that meeting place

where calm meets agitation,

where agitation meets calm. If you're feeling somehow sad, maybe there's some other

feelings you have. Maybe you're a little bit content or happy. Maybe there's a place

of a little bit of peace, some calm or something, where the mindfulness practice is to find

that meeting place where you hold sadness with happiness, with calm, with a sadleness, with presence. It's the meeting point of

things. So it's not necessarily to get rid of anything. You don't have to be actively engaged

with what you think shouldn't be there to try to find, figure out how to make it go away. And it's not about keeping something really great. I'm going to keep this. I'm

finally gotten calm. It's taken me 30 years, and I'm finally a little bit of calm, and this is great.

I'm going to hold on to this. It's not about holding on to anything, but it a wonderful meeting place where we see that we're actually as human beings multi-dimensional.

There's many things happening at once, and can you find that meeting place where what's wholesome, what's good in you, what's going well,

can meet what is challenging for you.

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