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

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So then to say just a few words about the practice. One of the, I think, very significant ways of understanding Buddhist practice is that we can

fold into the practice elements of the goal of the practice.

That the goal can be reflected

or to be enacted in the very way that we practice. So we're not waiting for the goal, you know,

some distant future to be fully enlightened, fully liberated, fully compassion, but rather understanding that freedom from clinging,

freedom from attachment, the goal of being able to live with peacefully in this world,

have an inner peace or calm, to be able to discover a form of happiness that it doesn't depend on winning

the lottery or getting a promotion or anything in the world is a quite a that kind of

that's the goal of practice to discover our capacity for love and compassion to its fullest extent is part of the goal of practice.

All these are kind of goal and some people will huff and puff and strain and try and you know you know and sit there waiting

expecting and wanting you know and somehow in the future it'll happen.

But one way of practicing then is to take any one of the goals

and see, how can I do this here

as I practice this moment, even if I'm just a beginner.

And to doing so is a phenomenal protection,

because sometimes people suffer more

because they're doing a practice that's supposed to end suffering.

They suffer more because they're straining and they're expecting or they're measuring themselves

or they're trying to prove themselves or they're disappointing themselves because their mind is distracted.

So the alternative, finding the goal in the means in the practice would be, as I'm practicing now, is the practice peaceful?

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