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Namaste and welcome. I begin tonight with one of my favorite stories that took

place in 2001 and this was three weeks before the Twin Powers were bombed in New York.

There was a conference that I attended in the Twin Powers. I still have the little pen that

I took from the building. It was a Buddhist conference and I was asked to help open the

conference with six other or five other teachers and they were all elders. I was by far the

young end of the spectrum in my Dharma experience and I was also the only woman and I was really

nervous about this. This was stressing me out. We had ten minutes each and we were asked to

address really the question of what is it that most helps to serve awakening and freedom.

So we had ten minutes to riff on that one and I was a second person in line and I thought

that's great. I get a chance to kind of compose and collect and so on but I get the thing done

with you know. The first person went up there was Richard Baker Rochi who was Suzuki Rochi's Dharma

Air very well known and beloved and so he gets up there to do his talk and he said awakening

comes down to two things. Intention and attention. Thank you very much.

I know all of a sudden like oh my god I'm on. Sorry I was done and frozen and I got up and I have no

idea what I said. I wish I had said like he said but I did remember what he said that awakening

comes down to intention that we have a conscious heart intention to be free which then guides

our attention to presence, intention and attention. The Buddha said that our entire life arises on the

tip of intention. It's a very powerful statement that whatever in a deep way or motivation is

that's going to determine what we think, say, do and our destiny. So this evening's reflection

is really how we remember and live from our deepest intention and I often explore this at the

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