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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

I'll offer a note, a practice note, for this morning, something to consider, keep in mind that might be helpful. And that is,

sometimes we have the idea that, oh, meditation would be so much easier if I could just get

rid of these pesky thoughts. Or we might even have the idea that I'm only really meditating

when there are no thoughts

or that the goal of practice is to not have any thoughts.

And that's actually not the case.

Sometimes thoughts do really greatly diminish and maybe they lose some of their influence as the mind and body

gets settled. But really what practice is about is our relationship to our thoughts. Are we giving them authority?

Are we believing them?

Are they pushing us around?

Are they being mean to us in some kind of way?

So really it's the relationship to thoughts,

not the thoughts themselves.

Thoughts appear automatically.

We don't control them.

We never will control them.

We think that we can.

We hope that we can,

but that's not how thinking works.

So instead, I'd like to offer something to play around with and consider with your practice this morning. When you remember,

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