I begin tonight with a little story, a Scandinavian story about Princess R and the Serpent, and Princess's parents had fallen on hard times, kind of dicey financial kind of problems, and they needed to raise some money.

So they went to the dragons horde, and I made an agreement with the dragon. The dragon said, sure, I'll give you money, one little small thing, and return your daughter.

So you've heard these stories before. They went to the princess and said, well dear, we've decided on a proper betrothal and we're getting you married to a dragon.

And that's what happened, but she happened to be a very resourceful young woman. So she went, although she was frightened and fearful, she went to the village-wise woman who lived at the edge of the marketplace and found her surrounded by her dozen or two children and grandchildren poured out her story.

And the wise woman said to her, you want to marry this dragon? And Princess said absolutely not. And she said, well I have a way I think you can do it that might just work to your benefit.

Here's what you have to do on your wedding night, and then she kind of whispered into her ear a few things. And she basically said the first thing you have to do is get a number of wedding gowns, tan, in fact.

So the wedding came, all the people came to the court, there was a big celebration, it was a little tough, but they retired, went to the bridal chambers, and the dragon turned to the princess and said, well, isn't it time to consummate our wedding?

The princess responded, yes, my dear husband, but for me to do so I must remove my wedding gowns, is that not so? Absolutely, my dear joyfully.

She said, okay, I have a small favor to ask you on your turn. Since I must remove my gowns to be pleasing to you, would you not remove a layer of your own so you could be pleasing to me?

So she took off a wedding gown and he had a few decorative things on his dragon body, took them off. Okay, fine.

To a surprise you notice that she had another wedding gown on, second of ten, she took that one off.

Dragons are used to taking off their scales, they're like reptiles, they have to shed someone. So while so he peeled off a thin layer, yes, dear, of course.

Oops, shed another gown on. So he's kind of having to take off a little more. She's got three, four, five, six gowns.

The dragon's claws had a dig deeper and deeper into his own flesh and skin to peel off yet another layer.

And then on the eighth wedding gown she took off, the dragon was down to taking off parts of himself that were stuck.

And his form began to change. And on the ninth it changed more remarkably. And when she took off the tenth gown by that time the dragon had pulled off so much drag in this that what was left.

As is often true and such stories was a handsome prince.

Do you guys know this story? I guess so. So then she took the advice of the old woman from the marketplace and she had that had a dozen children, a dozen grandchildren and continued a night of wedded bliss.

So I share this story because the practice of meditation can feel very much like this that there's layers of our being that are opening kind of hour by hour that that as we open what's revealed is an underlying beauty is a lucidity, a clarity of mind and openness of heart.

One of the classic metaphors that describes our predicament is that when we're stuck, we're looking through a veil of illusion.

And what that veil is, the big illusion is that our coverings, you know, what we all have, we all have coverings to protect us and defend us.

And the illusion is that the coverings are who we are. This is the big illusion that's at the center of all suffering that what we might call the layers of our ego that we that we take on because we're afraid or are confused, you know, the persona, the mask, the big illusion that causes us suffering is that we think that's who we are.

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