Tara Brach

Meditation: Refuge of Living Presence (2021-01-30) - Our thoughts keep us removed from this living world. This guided practice invites us to open and relax with the moment to moment experience of our senses. It includes a poem by Ingrid Goff-Maidoff, "Whereever you are, Find a Trail."

Cultivating a Courageous Heart - Part 1 (2020-01-13) - In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding - to ourselves, each other and our world - with courageous, wise hearts.

Meditation: Reconnecting to Silence and Presence (2021-01-13) - Only in silence and presence do we realign with what matters to our hearts. This simple practice of arriving in an embodied awareness supports us in touching the grounds of true transformation and healing. It closes with a powerful poem by Gunilla Norris, "Sharing Silence."

The Three Refuges - Gateways to Awakening (2021-01-06) - We all seek refuge, a sense of safety or homecoming amidst the uncertainties of life. Our way of finding refuge can either imprison or free us. This talk explores the false refuges that entrap us in feeling separate and endangered, and the refuges of Awareness (Buddha,) Truth (Dharma) and Love (Sangha) that reveal our true nature. This evening gathering includes a ceremony with candles, reflection and music.

Meditation: A Present Heart (2020-01-06) - One translation of mindfulness, in Chinese, is "present heart." In this guided meditation we begin by awakening through the body and the senses, and then open the attention to the changing flow of experience. The intention is to meet whatever arises with a wakeful and kind presence.

Repairing Our Hearts - Healing with the RAIN of Compassion (2020-12-30) - Living in a fear-based society fuels the trance of separation and unworthiness. This talk explores how we can bring an engaged compassionate presence to the suffering of this trance—in our inner work, and more broadly, in healing our culture (from the IMCW 2020 New Year Silent Retreat).

Meditation: RAIN of Self-Compassion (2020-12-30) - One of the great sufferings is turning on ourselves with judgment and/or self-aversion. This practice brings the acronym RAIN to this pain. It helps us cultivate a healing self-compassion, and the realization of who we are beyond any limiting story of self.

"Good Othering" – Helping Each Other Trust the Gold (2020-12-23) - One of the great gifts we can offer is being a mirror of goodness, reminding one another that we can trust our essential awareness, light and love. Because our conditioning is to fixate on flaws, "good othering" takes intention and practice. This talk explores how we can develop the habit of seeing goodness, and importantly, learn to communicate our appreciation and love to others.

Meditation: Meeting life with a Kind Presence (2020-12-23) - This practice guides us to a receptive, kind presence by starting with listening, and moving through a body scan. We then rest in an open awareness, responding to whatever arises with a gentle attention.

Heart to Heart: A Conversation Between Dan Gottlieb and Tara Brach (2020-12-16) - This very real and human interchange touches on pain, loss, love, gratitude and much more.

Meditation: Coming Home to Heartspace (2020-12-16) - Our pathway to our hearts is through presence. This meditation helps us awaken presence through our body and all our senses. We then open to the awareness that can meet whatever arises with tenderness and kindness. This meditation includes a reading from the Radiance Sutras, interpreted and translated by Lorin Roche

Remembering Our Belonging – Part 2 (2020-12-09) - Our deepest suffering comes from feelings of separation, and as a species, our great task is realizing our belonging—to our bodies and hearts, to each other, to the living web of all beings, to formless loving awareness. These two talks explore how healing and true belonging become possible as we deepen our capacity to face truth – within ourselves and with each other – and hold that truth with compassion.

Meditation: Yes to Our Moments (2020-12-09) - When we open without resistance to the changing flow of aliveness, we discover the formless presence that is our true home. This meditation guides us through a body scan and then opening to all sounds, sensations and emotions with the energetic allowing of "Yes." We close with a poem by Danna Faulds, "White Dove."

Remembering Our Belonging, Part 1 (2020-12-02) - Our deepest suffering comes from feelings of separation, and as a species, our great task is realizing our belonging—to our bodies and hearts, to each other, to the living web of all beings, to formless loving awareness. These two talks explore how healing and true belonging become possible as we deepen our capacity to face truth - within ourselves and with each other - and hold that truth with compassion.

Meditation: Embodied Love (2020-12-02) - This meditation guides us through a scan, to awaken a healing and openhearted presence throughout our body. We then widen to our full field of awareness, including whatever wants attention in an open, inclusive loving presence.

Authentic Thanks Giving (redux) - How do we awaken our natural capacities for gratitude and generosity? This talk explores the pathways of honest presence and purposeful cultivation, and offers several reflections that guide us in contacting and expressing our love (a favorite Thanksgiving talk from the archives).

Meditation: Yes to Life (2020-11-25) - After relaxing our bodies and quieting our minds, this meditation guides us to open to the changing experience of being alive. We ask ourselves two questions: "What is Happening Inside me?" and "Can I be with this?" By learning to bring an unconditional presence and an accepting Yes to our lives, we begin to touch openheartedness and freedom.

The Stories that Empower Us: A Conversation between Tara Brach and Elizabeth Lesser (2020-11-18) - Whether we know it or not, our daily lives take direction from myths and tales that are hundreds, even thousands of years old. During their time together, Tara and Elizabeth will speak about how these origin tales have shaped our psyches and perpetuated the violence and suffering that marks our world. They will then explore how we can create fresh stories that guide our collective awakening to peace, compassion and healing.

Meditation: The "Do No Harm and Take No S***" Practice, by Guest Elizabeth Lesser (2020-11-18) - This practice - based on an ancient Buddhist meditation - bears the name of needlepoint I found in my sister's office after she died. She was a nurse, and as such had taken the oath all medical practitioners take: to do no harm. She added the next line, "take no s***," because as we all know life requires us to be both kindly and strong. The following meditation is a training in both, because being kind and being strong are not mutually exclusive. Doing no harm and taking no s*** is not an either/or choice. It's the marriage of the two that will make a difference in your life and will change the story in the world. This meditation was recorded on Zoom during Tara's live-stream on 2020-11-18, and was followed by a conversation between Tara and Elizabeth.

"Play a Greater Part" – Bodhisattva for Our Times - During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what's happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. This talk is a reflection on how we as awakening bodhisattvas can evolve our consciousness in a way that serves authentic societal healing and transformation (a favorite from the archives).

Meditation: Vipassana – Opening Our Hearts to Life as It Is (2020-11-11). This meditation awakens the senses with a mindful scanning of the body, establishes an anchor for presence, and invites us to arrive again and again, deepening the pathway home. When difficult or intense experience arises, the practice is to learn to open to what is here with a clear, allowing and kind attention (a favorite from the archives).

Our Refuge of Heartspace (2020-11-04) - Amidst the great emotional reactivity of our times, this talk looks at: How do we hold this? What will allow us to respond wisely to our hurting world? How can we widen the circles of compassion? Our time includes a guided meditation, sharing of responses to several inquiries and a period of question/response.

Meditation: Refuge in Living Presence (2020-11-04) - This meditation guides us to rest in the aliveness of the changing stream of sensations, sounds and feelings. As we open to the awareness that includes all life, we touch the peace, stillness and wakefulness that is our essence. We close with Wendell Berry's beautiful poem, "The Peace of Wild Things."

Change, Loss and Timeless Love (Part 2) (2020-10-28) - Our capacity to live and love fully is entirely intertwined with how we relate to change and loss. These two talks are an invitation to look honestly, and without judgment, at the ways, we resist facing our fears and grieving our losses. We then explore how to bring mindfulness and compassion to processing what we've resisted, and opening to the timeless love that is our true nature (given on the IMCW 2020 Fall 7-Day Virtual Retreat).

Instruction and Meditation: Pathway to Non-Doing Presence (2020-10-27) - While meditation begins with purposeful collecting of attention, it leads to non-doing presence, to Being. In this guided practice, we arrive in presence through a body scan and attention to the breath, open the attention to changing experience, and then explore the freedom of not controlling anything, and letting life be just as it is.

Meditation: Suffering and Compassion (2020-10-28) - This brief meditation is a version of the Tibetan Tonglen practice: With the support of the breath we allow ourselves to open to the realness of suffering, and then offer it into a boundless heartspace…a shared and compassionate awareness.

Healing Racialized Trauma: A Conversation with Resmaa Menakem and Tara Brach (2020-10-21) - The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. Resmaa Menakem speaks in a compelling way how this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white body supremacy, and create a truly anti-racist culture. This conversation includes a powerful and provocative guided reflection.

Meditation: Letting Life Live Through You (2020-10-21) - We unconsciously tense against the energetic life of the present moment. This meditation guides us in relaxing and opening to the full aliveness and awareness that animates our being.

Change, Loss and Timeless Love (Part 1) (2020-10-14) - Our capacity to live and love fully is entirely intertwined with how we relate to change and loss. These two talks are an invitation to look honestly, and without judgment, at the ways we resist facing our fears and grieving our losses. We then explore how to bring mindfulness and compassion to processing what we've resisted, and opening to the timeless love that is our true nature.

Meditation: Listening to Our Heart (2020-10-14) - True listening arouses an open receptive presence that can be truly healing. This meditation awakens a listening presence; first bringing that receptive awareness to sensations and sounds, and then offering that presence to the tenderness and vulnerability of our heart.

Meditation: Uprooting Limiting Beliefs with RAIN - This short reflection guides us in using RAIN (recognize-allow-investigate-nurture) when we discover we are caught in a limiting belief. Who would you be if you didn't believe there was something wrong with you? (an excerpt from the full talk, Freedom from the Prison of Limiting Beliefs, given on 2020-09-23)

Meditation: Letting Go and Letting Be(2020-10-03) - We leave presence by contracting into thoughts and resisting the changing flow of life. This meditation guides us in gently releasing thoughts and opening to this mysterious life, just as it is.

Your Future Self: Turning Towards Your Awakened HeartMind - Our lives are shaped by our evolutionary past – the fears and wants that arise from a separate self sense – and the pull of our evolutionary potential – our awakened heart and mind. This talk explores the power of these pulls, and the teachings and reflections that make us most available and responsive to the calling of our future self (enjoy from the archives).

Equanimity: The Gifts of Non-Reactive Mindful Presence (2020-09-30) - If we want to bring our intelligence, creativity and love into our relationships and world, we need to be able to access an inner refuge of presence. This talk explores how, when we're reacting from anger, clinging or fear, to pause, reconnect to the immediate experience of "just this" and remember the love and awareness that has room for the changing waves of life.

Meditation: Pathway to Inner Peace (2020--09-30) - "Peace is this moment without judgment," writes poet Dorothy Hunt, "this moment in the heart-space where everything that is, is welcome." This meditation is a guide to opening to the truth of what's here, and meeting it with a gentle, allowing presence. As we do, we can touch the inner peace of non-judging awareness, and source our actions in that balance and wisdom.

Freedom from the Prison of Limiting Beliefs (2020-09-23) - (dedicated to Ruth Bader Ginsburg) - We suffer when we are caught in beliefs of our own or other's badness, unworthiness, or lack of value. These beliefs hurt our bodies, lead to violent and/or addictive behaviors, and separate us from our own heart and each other. This talk explores how we can discover who we are beyond these beliefs by recognizing when we are trapped, and learning how to turn to presence and love.

Meditation: Refuge in Presence (2020-09-23) - The movement from virtual reality – thoughts - to the awareness of sense-based reality is true homecoming. This meditation guides us in awakening our senses, and returning again and again to the freedom of embodied presence. We close with part of a poem "Come Home" by Jane Hooper.

The Four Remembrances (2020-09-16) - When we attune to the reality of impermanence and death, we remember what most matters to us. But in daily life we can lose precious swaths of time in a reactive trance, on our way somewhere else, and lost in problem solving, judgment and worry. This talk reflects on four remembrances or practices—Pausing, Yes to life, Turning toward love, and Resting in awareness—that help us awaken from trance and live true to the loving presence that is our essence.

Meditation: Loving What Is (2020-09-12) - While we might not directly love what is, there is a pathway to this inner freedom. As we explore in this meditation, we begin with allowing the changing sensations and emotions to move through us, just as they are. As this allowing presence deepens, it becomes suffused with the tenderness of love.

Meditation: Loving What Is (2020-09-12) - While we might not directly love what is, there is a pathway to this inner freedom. As we explore in this meditation, we begin with allowing the changing sensations and emotions to move through us, just as they are. As this allowing presence deepens, it becomes suffused with the tenderness of love.

Awakening from the Trance of Bad-Othering (2020-09-09) - Great spiritual leaders of social movements teach that true transformation arises from realizing our interconnectedness, and the light of the divine in each being. Sadly, through human history, much suffering has come from perceiving others as bad-others, flawed humans who are excluded from our heart. This talk looks at how our stories and mistrust of others—in personal relationships and in our society—can lead to cycles of violence, harm and deepening alienation. We then explore the inner process that helps us shift to "bad behavior, not bad human" and allows us to respond to suffering with love-in-action.

Meditation: Meeting Life with a Spacious Heart (2020-09-09) - Especially when we're stressed, we need pathways to an allowing, kind presence. This meditation guides us to relax and open through our bodies, and then meet changing waves of experience with a sea of awareness that is intrinsically allowing and tender.

Guided Reflection: The RAIN of Compassion – What Is It Like to Be You - Compassion is hard wired in our organism, and can be cultivated. We have the capacity for affiliative care, to tune into each other and to hold each other in our hearts. Developing this innate potential is the hope of our world. Using the acronym R-A-I-N (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture), this meditation offers guidance in mindfully attuning to the emotional experience of others and awakening our natural tenderness and care.

Transforming Your Relationship with Anxiety (2020-09-02) - Strong anxiety frequently triggers fight-flight-freeze, our survival brain's strategy for dealing with threats. This can become a trance that dominates our thoughts, feelings, behaviors and deepest experience of who we are. This talk explores how we get caught in this reactive trance, and ways of calming anxiety and radically shifting our way of relating to the experience of threat. The gift is discovering an inner freedom in the midst of life, and the capacity to respond to what arises with love-in-action.

Meditation: Relaxing Back into Awareness (2020-09-02) - When we are in our daily trance, we are often leaning forward, on our way somewhere else. In this meditation we are guided to relax back into the awareness that is always, already here. We explore relaxing back through a body scan, and then with all our senses wide open. With practice we increasingly find our pathway home by relaxing the clench of doings, and resting in what is.

Meditation: Listening to our Life (2020-08-15) - A receptive listening attention brings intimacy with our inner experience and our world. This meditation guides us in listening to sounds, states of mind, sensations and the deepest aspiration of our heart.

Meditation: Waking up from the Dream (2020-07-25) - We spend many life moments in a virtual reality of thoughts. This guided practice helps us reconnect with our senses and discover in the space between thoughts the light of awareness, the mystery of what we are.

Worrier Pose – Finding Freedom from the Body of Fear (retreat talk) - While fear is a natural part of our make up, many of us suffering when the "on" button gets jammed. This talk looks at how our fears generate habitual patterns of physical tension, anxious thinking, emotions and behaviors; and how this constellation prevents us from inhabiting our full wisdom and love. We then explore two interrelated pathways of healing—unconditional presence, and resourcing, or cultivating access to safety and belonging (from the Fall 2018 IMCW Silent Retreat).

Meditation: Resting in Awake Awareness - This practice opens with a body scan, employing the image and felt sense of a smile to awaken awareness through the body. We then open to all the senses, and rest in the awareness that includes this changing life.

Radical Love 2: Loving Ourselves into Healing(2020-08-19) - Radical love sees and cherishes the sacred that lives through all beings. In this talk, we'll look at the barrier to loving the life that is right here—what we call self—and how we can call on the light and warmth of awareness to awaken that love.