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

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

Good evening. Welcome, welcome.

Nice to see you all.

It's nice to practice together.

So tonight I'm going to start with this bold statement that earthworms are often underappreciated.

But they do this work of, you know, like aerating the soil, and creating little tunnels that allow air

and water to move through, as well as they eat some of the organic material and essentially recycle it

as leaving behind some castings. But the interesting thing is that, you know, earthworms,

of course, they're underground. Well, we don't see them. They're doing this work and

improving the quality of the soil. Probably, you

know, this planet wouldn't work as it does if we didn't have these things underneath the

ground that we didn't see and that we often just simply don't appreciate. And Ajan Chouha, who's one of the, for those of you know, Jack Cornfield,

was one of the elders in this tradition, and he practiced with Ajan Chaw in Burma, in Thailand,

sorry, in Thailand.

And Ajan Chau talked about this earthworm wisdom

this idea of doing practices that really can make a benefit in your life

but often goes unnoticed is often like underground you're not so obvious and not

seen and yet what a difference it makes.

I myself don't work with soil.

I don't have earthworms.

So, but I, this is my understanding, is that, you know,

...