So I appreciate the opportunity to practice with you today. So much of our culture, maybe, maybe we say much of the world, revolves around the question, what do I get?

And the Dharma is framed much more in the negative.

It revolves around what's to be, let go.

And in a sense, it suggests that we misdiagnose our problems,

that we're looking in the wrong places, that suffering, suffering is our only problem,

and that we ought not worry about joy and love and peace

that will all be waiting there as if all along

as the kind of veils of suffering start to fall.

And as the story goes,

when the Buddha achieved enlightenment,

something like, was said, something like,

done is what needed to be done.

And there was no, nothing else that needed to complement that freedom from suffering.

It wasn't that additional pleasure or security or something needed to supplement the peace.

And so a lot of our attention in practice revolves around letting go of the causes of suffering.

Very broadly categorizes greed, hate, and delusion. And for me, early in practice, I had such a kind of appetite for exploring my suffering,

you know, that I really wasn't discouraged even by enormous pain.

And that was onward leading in a lot of respects, but it also created the impression

that the path was about relinquishing pain,

or that it was only about that.

But the seven factors of awakening are celebrated as forms of pleasure, as goodness that helps us keep going.

That which we pick up is not just about letting go, but that which we pick up.

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