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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. There are perhaps two extremes in doing meditation, one extreme is trying too hard, pushing. The other is trying to a little.

After all, meditations about being easy going and relaxed and accepting things.

So, you know, you don't want to try too hard.

Maybe you shouldn't try at all.

Just kind of like, you know, just let's just chill with whatever's going on. So those two extremes are not helpful for meditation.

What's the middle way? What's the middle way? What's someplace in the middle? And one

idea I'd like to offer today is that there isn't just one way to do it. There isn't just like one effort to

hold. It's actually sometimes more useful to have the idea that effort and meditation is a little more like a massage.

If you just hold your finger on someone, you know, pushing all the time, that's not the massage.

Massage is you alternate between, you know, kind of pushing little bit,

squeezing a little bit, and then releasing, squeezing and then releasing.

So the idea, like for example, with mindfulness is to be mindful of something, say the breathing.

So you're aware of breathing in.

And so for a moment there, you're aware, you're aware just you're clearly aware oh this is

the in breath that's the effort this is the in breath that's and then

relax and experience the benefit of that awareness.

It's kind of like to coast for a moment.

Just relax.

Don't hold the effort. Don't kind of like be

racing to the next thing. The way I meditated for a while was by the time I was

half finished with being mindful of.

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