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

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Good. Good idea. Sometimes the challenge of meditating before giving a talk is that there's nothing to talk about now. So I'm thinking of the solstice, which happened a few days ago and that now we're in a

sense we're turning towards the time of light and there's a saying that goes something like,

we are conceived in the dark

and born out of the dark, we are born into the light and we grow in the light.

So, with the seasons we go into the darkness and that has its own value and now we go

out for those of the northern hemisphere we are going out into

the light.

When we meditate in our tradition we tend to close our eyes.

So it is a rhythm of a kind of going into the dark.

And then we open the eyes and we're going back out into the light.

And what is it that's conceived

when we close our eyes to meditate?

What is it that is born out of meditation that then is born into the light of our social life or work life or lived life.

And then only that but grows in that light, in that life.

And this rhythm of going into meditation and coming out is actually a very important one.

We're a retreat tradition.

So we put a lot of emphasis on going off on meditation retreats.

And there's a rhythm with those as well.

Some people, it's a yearly rhythm, maybe once a year they go and retreat and it's important

part of the year is to go in there and something

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