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

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So I came down here today, much more interested in hearing from you than hearing from myself.

So what I thought to be nice is to hear if you have any questions or any concerns that are up for you

that we want to kind of look at through Buddhist practice lens.

And then if there's no questions at all, that's going to be risky for you because I'm going to ask you a question.

So you'll protect yourself if you ask questions.

And if you could use your mic, it's nice if you do a new answer, ask if you would say your name first.

So just so we get to know each other a little more.

Yes, I wouldn't have surprised. Alex, you up in the front here now?

No, I was just saying, oh, you often have questions, but you won't put you on the spot.

So I have a practical question. My Elaine McRite, do you have any insider tips?

Do you have any insider tips on how one gets to attend a residence retreat at IRC?

Oh, how do any insight about how you get to attend the retreats at IRC?

Well, there's, well, I can tell you the secret, how to manage to attend it.

So we have a retreat center in Santa Cruz that holds about 40 retreats.

And one of the heartbreaking things for me is how many people end up in the waiting list for those retreats and don't get in.

And I really feel bad about it because I don't take likely people's intention to come on retreat.

And there's a lot of people, maybe it's even their first interest to be on retreats who don't can't come because it's such a long waiting list.

And then they lose interest or get discouraged and don't apply again or something.

But it's the nature of it. So some retreats we've had.

Before the pandemic, we had some retreats. There were so many people applied that we could have put on six retreats.

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