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

Please visit our website at audioderma.org. Good morning.

So I'd like to build a little bit on what I offered as the practice note.

That is invitation to notice any moments, any experiences of well-being or contentment or happiness or joy, even though they might

be slight, even though they might be subtle, even though they might be short, and even though you don't want to.

Sometimes we do, but sometimes there can be this way that we are tend to want to be dismissive of any of these experiences that have

more of an uplift. I want to talk a little bit more about that.

And as part of it introduced that, I just want to mention this key classical Buddhist

teaching that many of us are familiar with and that is the four noble truths.

The first is the truth of suffering. There is suffering. There is Duka. I'm using suffering and Duka to mean this wide, wide, wide range of

unpleasant, uncomfortable experiences from the absolute horrible to just the mildly annoying, one word to do this whole range.

So first noble truth, there is Duka.

Second noble truth can be translated different ways. There's a cause for dukkah.

Third noble truth there's the cessation of dukah.

Fourth noble truth there is a path leading to the cessation of Dukah.

I want to focus on this third one, cessation of Dukah. often we tend to think like yeah yeah yeah okay

that happens as soon as I'm awakened or that's for other people or something like

this we might have this idea that practice is all about, you know, working and striving and then there'll be a chazam moment in which there'll be less suffering.

It doesn't work quite like that.

Instead, this is a gradual training.

To be clear, there are shifts, there are big shifts, but it's not like it all

sudden goes from black to white or from white to black or something like this.

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