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

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Good evening. Welcome. Welcome everybody. Nice to see you all. Practice together.

It's a beautiful thing. And happy Earth Day, today's Earth Day.

And it's like so beautiful outside.

Have you guys noticed like I had noticed like all there's flowers growing and

and last week I went to Arizona and to teach a retreat and then afterwards I went to some national parks like of course I did.

I was in the neighborhood and it was just so great, you know, just to see these national parks. So I'm kind of filled up with the beauty of

nature and these things. So kind of on that theme, I wanted to talk about maybe nature a little bit, but I'll start

with this poem. And this poem is by Galway Kennel, who is an American poet. He was the Nobel Laureate of literature in 1983.

And this is just a short poem that it's pointing to some of the same things I'd like to point to in this talk.

The poem is called Daybreak and it's by Galway Kennel.

Maybe I should say that I listened to a recording of Galway Kennel speaking this poem.

It was really great.

He did a great job.

I'd really loved how he read it.

But he mentioned that he wrote this poem after spending some time on the barrier reef, the great barrier reef,

you know, outside of Australia and then I guess he would go for walks on the shore. So just to give a little bit of context. So daybreak by Galway

Kennel. On the tidal mud, just before sunset, dozens of starfishes were creeping.

It was as though the mud were as sky and enormous imperfect stars moved across it slowly

as the actual stars cross heaven.

All that once they stopped,

...