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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org.

So, um... So what I'd like to talk about today is a little bit of an expansion of what I talked about Wednesday morning here.

Half day sitting we have.

And the simple way is that, the simple kind of introduction is that has to do with a as we practice we develop a growing set of reference points that guide us in our practice.

And so we don't, no longer guided by instructions

from other people from the text,

but rather from ourselves because we have developed these

reference points of something really good, really healthy and wholesome that is

available to us we we know, for ourselves.

And so we know what's how to go forward,

we know how to find our way, and what is useful and healthy to do.

And it's phenomenal to have that shift. what is useful and healthy to do.

And it's phenomenal to have that shift from,

you know, taking Buddhism as an external reference point

for your life versus having internalize

something that you know for yourself as a reference.

So that is the basic kind of premise for today's talk.

And in the course of it, maybe also it'll give you a sense of why in mindfulness meditation

we put tremendous importance on mindfulness of the present moment.

Sometimes the present moment, I feel,

gets over-idealized in our scene, and like it's all good just to be in the present moment. But it's a

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