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

Please visit our website at audioderma. Welcome. Welcome. Nice to see you all. So tonight I like to start with a setting a little

scene that happens on the Buddha's deathbed. He knows he's going to die, so he asks for a special

bed to be made for him between these trees on the outskirts of a town.

And then right before he's ready to die questions, has his question that he asks, has his question that he asks

and that court is from this.

If even a single monastic has any doubt or uncertainty

concerning the Buddha, Darma, or the path, and the practice,

ask, do not afterwards feel remorse thinking the teacher was there before us and we failed to ask him when we were in his presence.

So maybe he was thinking like this is the real thing, I am going to die. This is your last chance. You have any questions?

There's so many things here that is, you know, it seems maybe mundane but it's kind of special in some way.

He's not saying, okay, I only want to talk to my little inner circle as I'm dying, right?

He's not saying that.

And later on it talks about there's 500 people there. There's 500 monastics.

And he's saying, is anybody out there have any questions?

Doesn't matter if they're just like a somebody who's newly ordained or so the most senior?

He's like, do you have any questions?

But then he also qualifies that.

Do you have any questions about the Buddha,

Darma, Songa, and the path and the practice?

And I'll talk about this a little bit more. Like, what are some of the questions that he didn't think were so suitable at this time?

So he's kind of like confining it to, okay do you have questions about what I've been teaching, what all this teaching's really been about?

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