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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

There's maybe some simple ideas about practicing mindfulness this morning.

If a person is riding a bicycle on, say, flatland, or maybe even better, it's had a slight downward slope,

and the person is a good rider, a good peddler, has good balance, but the person has one particular challenge. And that is

they automatically, habitually, unknowingly keep pressing the brake with their hand, pulling in that

brake lever. And they're wondering why it's so hard to pedal.

And they're wondering, on the slope, why they stop,

when there should be a downward slope, they should be rolling.

And then they eventually remember, oh, wait a minute, I have the break on, and they let go.

But it's such a habit, it's so, they're constantly, as soon as

they stop doing it, they pull in the lever again and they don't remember even that they've

done it. They're so preoccupied with, I don't know, something. And so they have to keep letting

go, keep letting go, keep letting go, so they can roll. Meditation is a little bit like that.

In that we, in some ways, many times, we always have the lever on, the break on, in a sense,

and we have to remember to release it. So the present moment is always rolling along. The river of time that

moves through what we call now is always moving, always changing. The direct experience of our

life in the moment is a constant change, changing experiences, changing sounds, sights, smells, taste,

touch, and the changing inner landscapes of desires, emotions, aversions, intentions, thoughts,

constantly shifting and changing. But many times we relate to our thoughts, our emotions, our desires, as if we put the break on.

Like, okay, now we full stop for this.

This is important.

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