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

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

So, good day everyone.

And then continuing the list of the tenfold list that I gave on the ten protectors.

And it might be just as useful, maybe more useful, to call these ten supports.

And life can be quite challenging, and the challenges can be unexpected.

And our inner life can be challenging, and our inner life can be unexpected.

Just all the ways it shifts and changes, sometimes seemingly for no reason.

And so it's good to have supports, it's good to have supports to find our way,

and not be overwhelmed or excessively challenged.

Goods have supports that keep us balanced and centered and attentive in a clear and wise way.

So, the fourth of these supports, so far it's been having a virtuous conduct,

behaving in such a way that our behavior doesn't challenge us and doesn't make things more difficult than they need to be, to learn.

To learn the Dharma, to learn good skills in life, to be studied and kind of prepared for what we're doing.

Understand the bigger context.

And the third is having good spiritual friends,

surrounding yourselves, or having a reference to friends that bring out the best in us,

who have our best wishes in mind, who want to support us, who care about our well-being.

But to do so from a place of freedom, a place of not demanding or expecting or judging us for who we are,

having good spiritual friends.

And today the support is being easy to speak to,

be someone who is easy for people to say things to you.

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