Tonight's very unusual for us, it's probably maybe twice a year we do this, which is instead

of a prepared reflection slash talk. It's the evening's going to be open to any of your questions,

and if you didn't come with one, you might start considering right now if there's anything

about the meditation practices we do or some of the teachings that are the context for them

that you're curious about or confused about or just want to have better understanding of.

So what we'll be doing is inviting you to come up to the mics, and I really hope those of you

that are the types that never talk in large groups and you know are very shy, I just play your

edge as I'd love to feel it, just invite you to come up and ask a question. So that'll be the

format for tonight. If it turns out we have time, then I'll be closing with a loving kindness

meditation and actually invite any questions or sharing you have about that, but it may be that

we have a lot of questions, so I wanted to just leave it open-ended to you. With that, the

invitation is for anybody that feels so inclined to begin, just you can just come right up to the

mics, and if somebody else is at one mic and you know you're going to want to ask a question,

just start, just come to the other one so we can just kind of move back and forth.

So now we're going to go into silence until somebody.

Hi, my question is you talked a little bit about embodiment a couple of weeks ago,

and I'm wondering the relative importance or component of embodiment versus self-transcendence

when it comes to meditation? So don't sit down here because I very often just to get

clip more clarity. So you're wondering about the relative importance of embodiment being awake

inside our bodies and self-transcendence, and could you say a little bit more of what you mean

by that? One of the definitions that I've heard of spirituality as self-transcendence

or becoming a part of something larger, and that's something that I've experienced in meditation,

...