Tara Brach

Meditation: Opening to the Waves (2018-06-27) - When we are lost in thought, we lose touch with the aliveness and awareness that is always here. This meditation guides us with a mindful body scan to open to our senses, then to sound and all waves of aliveness. From that open presence we end with a loving kindness prayer.

Landlocked in Fur – Three Domains of Formless Presence (Retreat Talk) - While we have evolved to experience a defining sense of separate self, our potential is to awaken to the formless dimension – the pure awareness is our shared source. This talk explores how we can undo the identification with thoughts, emotions and feelings that keeps us landlocked and unable to trust and live from our naturally loving and radiant essence. (a favorite from the archives - given at the 2014 IMCW New Year's Retreat in Reisterstown, MD) Poem at start of talk: "Landlocked in Fur" – by Tukaram. From: "Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West" (Ladinksy, 2002)

Meditation: The Silence That's Listening (from retreat) - Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. In this guided meditation, we begin by opening to sound and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life - allowing whatever is here to be just as it is. In the foreground, we notice the dance of sensations, thoughts, emotions…rising up and falling away. And in the background, a wakeful, receptive presence - the silence that is listening. When we let go of all doing and relax back into this alert stillness, we sense our true nature…our home. In words from the Tibetan tradition: "Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating, allowing awareness." (Morning meditation from the 2018 Spring IMCW 7-Day Silent Retreat)

Short Talk and Meditation: Spacious, Loving Awareness (retreat) - When our awareness is awake and open, we naturally respond to this changing life with warmth, tenderness and love. This practice helps us discover the spaciousness of awareness by realizing the space and aliveness that is in the body, and then sensing the continuous space that holds all life. We then sense how this continuous space is filled with the light of awareness and pervaded by love. (from the Spring 2018 IMCW 7-day Silent Retreat) Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Heart Meditation: Forgiving and Freeing Our Hearts (retreat) - Forgiveness for others becomes possible when we've held our own being with great compassion. This short talk and guided meditation brings forth our most awake and tender presence as we ask for forgiveness, offer care to the woundedness within us, and then extend forgiveness to another who has hurt us. (from the Spring 2018 IMCW 7-day Silent Retreat) Join Tara in a 10-day online course on forgiveness available through Insight Timer: Free Yourself From Blame & Resentment.

Disarming Our Hearts: Letting Go of Blame (retreat talk) - Anger, judgment and blame create separation—from our inner life and our world. Only by releasing chronic blame can we free our hearts to truly give and receive love. This talk looks at the difference between healthy anger and the trance of blame, and through a set of reflections, teachings and stories, guides us in healing and freeing our hearts. (from the Spring 2018 IMCW 7-Day Silent Retreat - previously unpublished) Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Instruction & Meditation: Tonglen - Radical Compassion (retreat talk) - We are conditioned to avoid suffering - our own and others. By pulling away, we also contract our heart and disconnect from our innate capacity for compassion. This short talk and meditation is a training in touching vulnerability, and discovering the boundless heartspace that can be a transformer of sorrows. (from the Spring 2017 IMCW Spring 7-day Silent Retreat - previously unpublished)

From Human Doing to Human Being (2018-05-30) - Like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder up the hill, we can spend many moments busily trying to manage our life. This two-part talk explores how we can awaken from our non-stop doing, including the incessant inner narrative, and discover the mystery, love and freedom that arises in Being. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Aliveness and Presence (2018-05-30) - This meditation includes a body scan, using the imagery of a smile, and establishing the senses as a portal to presence. The more we open into the aliveness of the senses, the more we discover the alert inner stillness that is our true home. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Seeing Basic Goodness - Part 2 (2018-05-23) - Most of us long to trust our goodness, but get caught in stories of deficiency and striving to affirm we're ok. These talks look at the block to realizing the loving awareness that is our essence, and the practices that help us see this essential goodness - in ourselves, dear ones and in those we might habitually consider different or "other." Both talks include reflections that can help us appreciate the basic goodness that lives through these precious, changing forms. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Lighting Up Your Energy Body(2018-05-23) - Our being has many frequencies of aliveness and as we attend to the more subtle, we discover a portal to the radiant awareness that is always here. This meditation guides us in using the breath and attention as we scan through the body and awaken an inner luminosity. We then open the attention to rest in the whole field of awake awareness.

Seeing Basic Goodness - Part 1 (2018-05-16) - Most of us long to trust our goodness, but get caught in stories of deficiency and striving to affirm we're ok. These talks look at the block to realizing the loving awareness that is our essence, and the practices that help us see this essential goodness - in ourselves, dear ones and in those we might habitually consider different or "other." Both talks include reflections that can help us appreciate the basic goodness that lives through these precious, changing forms. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life (2018-05-16) - This meditation invites us to collect our attention with a calming breath, and then with the senses as a home base, settle into presence. The reminders encourage a letting go of thoughts, shifting from virtual reality into the aliveness of moment-to-moment experience. In that letting go into life we find the stillness. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Eating Addiction: How Meditation Helps Free Us (2018-05-09) - Buddhist psychology views clinging as the source of suffering, and one of the great domains of clinging is compulsive overeating. For most of us the causes and conditions for compulsive overeating existed before we were born, during our early childhood, and in our surrounding society. We begin to release shame and self-aversion by realizing we are not alone in this suffering; and eating addiction is not "our fault." The talk includes an exploration of how, through RAIN, we can bring mindfulness and self-compassion to compulsive eating, giving us more choice in our behavior. Ultimately we discover that this deep prison of suffering can become a portal to realizing the freedom our true nature. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Intimacy with Life (2018-05-09) - This guided meditation begins with a body scan, bringing the friendliness of a smile into the body, and waking up our awareness of aliveness. We widen the attention to include sound and then sense and rest in the awareness that holds all experience. Our reminders are to wake up from trance by reopening to our senses, allowing for a true intimacy with the life that lives through us.

After the RAIN (retreat talk) (2018-04-29) - This talk offers an in-depth exploration of RAIN, applying the wings of mindfulness and compassion to painful domains of trance. We bring special attention to the fruit of RAIN, the realization of who we are beyond any limiting identity. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Morning on Retreat (2018-05-01) - In this guided meditation we include an overview of different components of mindfulness practice. The reflection includes a body scan, establishing a home base for attention, and care in how to arrive in full presence after being lost in thought. We then explore opening mindfully to different experiences and the simple and liberating practice of "being here," letting life be just as it is.

Responding to Change with a Wise Heart (2018-04-25) - An intrinsic part of spiritual life is facing the truth of impermanence. When we open to the changing flow without resistance, we naturally cherish this passing life, and realize the timeless, changeless awareness that is our true home. Yet we are conditioned to grasp on to the passing pleasures (and all that we love) and resist the inevitable arising of stress and unpleasant experience. This talk includes teachings and guided reflections that help us identify the ways we are reacting to major changes in our life. We explore how to shift from reacting to meeting impermanence with an allowing presence, and then responding to our circumstances with wisdom and compassion. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Cultivating a Clear and Relaxed Presence (2018-04-25) - This guided meditation begins with a calming breath to quiet the mind and relax the body. Following this, we establish our presence with an anchor - the breath, sound or sensation - and practice "coming back" from distractions, and including whatever direct experience asks for our kind attention. The meditation ends with a short loving kindness prayer. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Listening with an Awake Heart - Part 2 (2018-04-18) - Deep listening - to our inner life, each other and our world - is an intrinsic expression of our awakened heart. Yet because we have strong conditioning to be caught in wants and fears, there is often much interference in the field of communications. These two talks are an opportunity to intentionally deepen your capacity to listen in a way that leads to increased understanding and connection. You'll have the opportunity to investigate what gets between you and deep listening, and to practice the key elements that nurture receptive presence. The second talk includes questions and responses that focus on having an agenda instead of listening, the feeling that we don't have enough time, listening when we feel reactive (hurt, defensive, intimidated, angry) and the need to feel heard. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Mind Like a Vast Sky (2018-04-18) - This meditation opens with listening and discovering the sky-like awareness that includes changing sounds, thoughts, feelings and sensations. The sounding of bells and chimes assists in connecting to and resting in the boundless and loving awareness that is our true home. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Listening with an Awake Heart - Part 1 (2018-04-11) - Deep listening - to our inner life, each other and our world - is an intrinsic expression of our awakened heart. Yet because we have strong conditioning to be caught in wants and fears, there is often much interference in the field of communications. These two talks are an opportunity to intentionally deepen your capacity to listen in a way that leads to increased understanding and connection. You'll have the opportunity to investigate what gets between you and deep listening, and to practice the key elements that nurture receptive presence. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: A Listening, Receptive Awareness (2018-04-11) - The capacity to truly listen allows us to realize the vast and sensitive awareness that is our true essence. This meditation focuses on listening to sounds, and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life. When carried off by thought, we notice and then relax back into a receptive and listening presence. There's nothing to do, simply letting life be as it is, and resting in the freedom of awake, open awareness. Tara's website: www.tarabrach.com Join Tara's email list: https://eepurl.com/6YfI - get a free download of Tara's new 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease".

If we are suffering, we are believing an interpretation of reality that is limiting and untrue. At these times we are imprisoned in a painful looping of fear-driven thoughts and feelings. This talk explores the ways our practices of mindfulness, compassion and loving presence can guide us from addictive thinking to perceiving life with a wise heart. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Awareness and Flow (2018-04-04) - This guided practice awakens all the senses with an embodied presence, allowing an opening to the moment-to-moment changing flow of experience. We then relax back, resting as the changeless open awareness that is conscious of the flow, and includes all life. Join Tara's email list: http://eepurl.com/6YfI - get a free download of Tara's new 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease".

Namaste: Seeing the Truth of Who We Are (2018-03-28) - A gift of evolving consciousness is the capacity to recognize and honor the sacred awareness that lives through our own and all beings. This capacity is blocked by our identification with our "mask" or ego self, and not seeing past other people's masks. In this talk we reflect together on some key filters of superior/inferior and good/bad that shape the trance of a narrowed identity, and then explore how mindfulness and kindness free us to inhabit the vastness of our natural awareness. We close with tasting the possibility of bringing the spirit of Namaste to ourselves, others and all beings. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Continuous Space Suffused with Awareness (2018-03-28) - By learning to inhabit the body, we discover the space and aliveness that fills the universe. In this meditation we are guided through the body, filling different domains with presence. We then open into the continuous awake space that is both within and surrounds the body. When we notice the mind drifts, we relax back to be that awake space, aware of the changing flow of sensations, thoughts, feelings and sounds. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Trusting Who We Are (retreat talk) - (2017-12-30) - The sign of spiritual freedom is a deep trust in our essential nature, and in the light of awareness that lives through all beings. This talk explores the conditioning that entraps us in a trance of separation and believing in a limited self. We then explore the evolutionary shift in identity that is possible as we deepen our attention and presence to the life that is here, and the loving awareness that is the source of existence. This talk was given at the IMCW 2017 New Year's Retreat. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation and Short Talk: Basic Elements of a Mindfulness Meditation Sitting (from the 2017 IMCW New Year retreat) - This short talk and guided meditation offers an overview of what many people find a natural unfolding within a meditation sitting. It includes the process of arriving in an embodied presence, learning how to come back from thoughts, and then opening the attention mindfully to the changing flow of experience.

Part 2 - Awakening our Body's Awareness (2018-03-14) - Mindful awareness of our bodies is a portal to full aliveness, wisdom and love. These two classes will explore the trance that takes us away from our body, the pathways home, ways of working with pain, and the gifts of an embodied presence. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Inhabiting Our Body, Realizing Wholeness (2018-03-14) - Awakening awareness in the body is the portal to resting in boundless and dynamic presence. This guided practice scans the body from feet up, and helps us inhabit all parts of our body. As we open to the aliveness and space inside the body, we discover a permeability that allows us to inhabit the universe of aliveness and space, form and formlessness. With this homecoming to whole beingness is an intrinsic experience of freedom. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Part 1 - Awakening our Body's Awareness (2018-03-07) - Mindful awareness of our bodies is a portal to full aliveness, wisdom and love. These two classes will explore the trance that takes us away from our body, the pathways home, ways of working with pain, and the gifts of an embodied presence. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Homecoming with the Breath (2018-03-07) - This meditation focuses on the breath as an anchor for homecoming. We begin with an intentional breath (coherence breathing) and then establish the natural breath as a home base. The instructions are to rest in the breath, offering a relaxed, intimate intention. Other waves of sensation or emotion are included when they ask for attention as we cultivate an open and full mindful presence. Our freedom arises as we recognize the formless awareness that is our home, and the natural and ever-changing waves that live through us. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Part 4 - Equanimity: Present Heart - Universal Expressions of Love (2018-02-28) - Equanimity unfolds as we find a wise balance and spaciousness in the midst of this living, dying world. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual patterning that blocks our full realization of these innate capacities, and the understandings and practices that nurture their unfolding. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: The Space and Aliveness of Presence (2018-02-28) - We arrive in presence by deepening attention in the body; relaxing and awakening through a body scan. That presence deepens as we bring our attention to the space of awareness that includes the changing flow of sounds, sensations and feelings. In that wholeness of formlessness and form, we discover our natural being - open, awake and tender. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Part 3 - Joy - Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love (2018-02-21) - Joy blossoms in the moments our hearts open boundlessly to reality, to the 10,000 joys and sorrows. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual patterning that blocks our full realization of these innate capacities, and the understandings and practices that nurture their unfolding. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: The Heartspace Where All is Welcome (2018-02-21) - This meditation scans through the body, and awakens attention to the open, inclusive awareness that all life arises in. We then explore experiencing that openness in the region of the heart, saying yes to life and including whatever is here with unconditional presence. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Part 2 – Compassion - Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love (2018-02-14) - Compassion - the tender resonance of heart - awakens as we allow ourselves to be touched by our shared vulnerability. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual patterning that blocks our full realization of these innate capacities, and the understandings and practices that nurture their unfolding. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Awareness Is Our Home (2018-02-14) - This guided practice helps us come into our senses through a body scan. We then rest in the awareness that is listening to and feeling the changing flow of experience. When the mind drifts, the return is a relaxing back to our senses, and to the sea of awareness that includes and experiences the waves of life. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Part 1 ~ Present Heart: The Universal Expressions of Love (2018-02-07) ~ Lovingkindness: We awaken our natural lovingkindness by learning to attend to and take in the goodness of this life. This series reflects on four primary expressions of an awake, wise heart: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In each talk we explore the habitual patterning that blocks our full realization of these innate capacities, and the understandings and practices that nurture their unfolding. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Living Presence (2018-02-07) - This meditation guides us to awaken to our senses through scanning through the body and then listening to sounds. When distracted by thoughts we relax open again and again, learning to rest in the formless awareness that includes sounds, sensations and all passing experience. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Part 3 - Freedom from Othering: Undoing the Myths that Imprison Us (2018-01-31) - A primary source of our suffering is the conditioning to create "bad other," or "inferior other." This same conditioning leads us to creating a bad self and turn on ourselves. These three talks explore how we subscribe to societal myths and beliefs that perpetuate this "bad othering," and "bad selfing." They then guide us in bring a healing attention that can reveal the goodness that lives through all beings, and our innate connectedness. A core teaching is, "the boundary to who we include in our hearts is the boundary to our freedom." Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

This meditation awakens us to the space and aliveness in these bodies, and to resting in wakeful openness. When we get lost in thought, we practice relaxing open, and exploring the gap between thoughts. By opening beyond the veil of thinking, we discover the Beingness that is home. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Part 2 - Freedom from Othering: Undoing the Myths that Imprison Us (2018-01-24) - A primary source of our suffering is the conditioning to create "bad other," or "inferior other." This same conditioning leads us to creating a bad self and turn on ourselves. These two talks explore how we subscribe to societal myths and beliefs that perpetuate this "bad othering," and "bad selfing." They then guide us in bring a healing attention that can reveal the goodness that lives through all beings, and our innate connectedness. A core teaching is, "the boundary to who we include in our hearts is the boundary to our freedom." Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Resting in Reality - This guided practice awakens attention to sensations, sounds, space and aliveness, and encourages a continued "relaxing open" from thoughts into the living stream of experience. We are learning to recognize and rest in the moment to moment flow, "being reality," at home in what we are. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Freedom from Othering: Undoing the Myths that Imprison Us - Part 1 - A primary source of our suffering is the conditioning to create "bad other," or "inferior other." This same conditioning leads us to creating a bad self and turn on ourselves. These three talks explore how we subscribe to societal myths and beliefs that perpetuate this "bad othering," and "bad selfing." They then guide us in bring a healing attention that can reveal the goodness that lives through all beings, and our innate connectedness. A core teaching is, "the boundary to who we include in our hearts is the boundary to our freedom." Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Receiving Life with an Open Awareness (2018-01-17) - We begin with listening and then bring a receptive attention to experience the life of the body. We then open the attention to the whole field of sensations and sound, and rest in the openness and presence that includes all the changing currents of experience. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Winds of Homecoming: How Intention Frees our Heart (2018-01-10) - The Buddha taught that we live our lives on the tip of intention, it is the seed of our future. This talk explores the difference between "limbic" intentions driven by grasping or fear, and intentions that are the call of our awakening heart. You will learn how to identify and shift from a "limbic" to wise intention, and several different ways you can more readily and regularly access your deepest aspiration. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara

Meditation: Space and Aliveness and Awareness (2018-01-10) - This meditation engages the breath in a way that it connects us with our energetic aliveness and the space that holds and is intrinsic to all life. A body scan using this breath opens us to the body as a field of aliveness. We then rest in the changing flow of experience, and the still presence that is our essence.

Three Gateways to Peace and Freedom - This talk explores the three archetypal refuges of truth, love and awareness. We look at the outer and inner aspects of each refuge, and then through guided reflections and a Refuge Ritual, deepen our commitment to the pathways that awaken our minds and free our hearts. NOTE: Includes a Refuge Ritual at the end of the talk - if you'd like to participate, you'll need some red string. We use "Classic crochet thread, size 10 in red" about 36 inches per person. Sing along - the Three Refuges chant sheet is available at www.tarabrach.com/three-gateways-peace-freedom/. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/. With gratitude and love, Tara