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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org.

Welcome, welcome. Nice to see you all.

How is the volume? It feels a tiny bit loud for me. Does it seem loud to you guys?

Is this okay? I have to talk nonstop for an order for this to...

Can I get a thumbs up? Yes? Okay, thanks.

So sometimes it's helpful to think about or reflect on what is our heart's deepest longing

recognizing what we have limited time on to be alive and limited resources and limited energy.

Is it... are we spending it in a way that's meaningful for us?

That's going to help to go in the direction that we would like.

What are our deepest aspirations?

Maybe we'll just take a moment just to think about them.

It's useful to reflect on this taking some time and what are you most inspired by?

What makes your heart sing?

When you think about it or maybe you're just unclear right now, that's perfectly fine.

But when we kind of align with an aspiration or we remind ourselves or touch into what's really important for us,

there can be a feeling of lightness or some ease or maybe some openness or relief.

In contrast to this feeling like, oh, I should do this.

That's kind of like the opposite of this openness, the sense of should kind of has this sense of contraction or restriction or limitation or something like this.

But this kind of reflection, it's good to do regularly.

Otherwise, right, our life just passes us by while we're taking care of all the things that need taking care of.

Sometimes it's easy to get disconnected from what's most important.

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