To begin tonight's talk, I'd like to read you.

This is adapted from a poem by Donna Falls and she says, do not let the day slip through

your fingers, but live it fully now, this breath, this moment, catapulting you into full

awareness.

Time is precious, minutes disappearing like water into sand unless you choose to pay attention.

Since you do not know the number of your days, treat each as if it is your last.

Be that compassionate with yourself, that open and loving to others, that determined

to give what is yours to give, and to let in the energy and wonder of this world.

Experience everything, writing, relating, eating, doing all the necessary little tasks of

life as if for the first time, pushing nothing aside as unimportant.

You have received these same reminders many times before.

This time, take them into your soul, for if you choose to live this way, you will be

rich beyond measure, grateful beyond words, and the day of your death will arrive with

no regrets.

So I wanted to begin with that reading, kind of as an invitation, not just to presence,

but to the sense of possibility of what is available to us if we really show up.

And in Buddhist psychology and teachings, there are two very complementary approaches to

awakening, to freedom.

And one of them is this pure presence right here, right now, this moment.

And the other is really sensing possibility and cultivating the what is possible.

The reason being that we get so habituated sometimes towards a limiting state of mind that

to actively sense what is possible and invite it forward actually brings us into our wholeness.

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