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

Please visit our website at audiodderma.org.

Say a few words about the practice.

When my children were young, were young, we had a trampoline in our backyard.

And so occasionally I went on the trampoline.

And one of the interesting things I would emphasize now is that if you stand on the

trampoline it gives a little bit. And if you stand near the edge it gives a a little bit that makes kind of a slope.

But if you go to the middle and stand in the middle, it's where it gives the most,

and it lowers the most, and it's also the most stable that way. It was nice sometimes just lay in the middle

and just feel the weight being pulled down and so in our life it's nice to find where the middle is where we

can where it gives the most where we kind of give into gravity the most or where we settle the most where we can kind of

give into gravity the most or where we can kind of rest and not on the slope on the sides.

And so what I mean by that metaphor is that,

is that we're often kind of spinning out or kind of up in our head, kind of out on the end of a limb of some emotion or attitude or a feeling or interpretation of life for ourselves

where it's not very stable but it's possible perhaps to feel your way rather than think your way.

Feel your way to where inside of you happens to be the place that's most calm or most centered or most still, most peaceful, most something

that feels good feels.

And that's, it doesn't, again, the exploration is the most, so it might be hardly calm at all,

but it's certainly calmer than everything else that's a chaos. Just the most calm or the least chaotic.

And think of that as the middle of the trampolineoline of your trampoline that somehow you're stuck

on and bouncing up and down and never at rest but find that place in the middle and

rests there to breathe from there but find that place in the middle and rest there.

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