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

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

To prioritize their thinking, and you know, I have a lot of respect for thinking.

I actually like thinking sometimes. It's a wonderful tool and wonderful thing that we do.

It also gets people into tremendous amount of difficulty and problems in their life.

But to spend too much time in our thoughts is also a problem because it leaves out too much more about who we are.

And if you imagine the human being to be a pyramid, the bottom of the pyramid would be their physical body.

The next layer up might be really big categories. Maybe it's their emotional life.

And then the top would be their thinking life.

And their thinking life is just a little piece of the pyramid on top.

And so what that means is that thinking, when all the pieces are there properly,

it has its phenomenal support by the stability of the body, the stability and the growth of the emotions,

and how they support what's on top.

And so to really be grounded, you know, more in your body than in your thoughts,

then you have a good foundation for the pyramid.

If you're more connected to your emotions than you are your thoughts,

that also has a fantastic support for how we think and why we think what we think.

If we prioritize thinking the most, then it's kind of like we're an upside down pyramid trying to balance on the tip.

And some of you might be very good balancers.

You know, you can just keep it just perfectly balanced, maybe because you have your head in the soil.

So you're kind of wedged in there, so holds you up.

But you know, just to balance that tip is hard and you'll probably fall over many times.

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