Tara Brach

2013-12-29 - Realizing Our Undefended and Awakened Heart (retreat talk) - It is our evolutionary and spiritual potential to release unnecessary habits of violating other tribes, individuals and unwanted parts of our own being. This talk explores three essential facets of the pathway to awakening: Leaving the fortress of aversive judgment, entering the wilderness of our embodied being and encircling this life with love.

2013-12-28 - Walking Meditation Instruction (from the IMCW 2013 New Year's retreat)

2014-01-08 - Path of True Refuge - This talk explores the three archetypal gateways to liberation - awareness (Buddha), truth (Dharma) and love (Sangha). It includes guided reflections and a refuge ceremony that can help us discover the path “inside out” through daily life.

2014-01-08 - Guided Meditation: Refuge in Living Presence

2011-02-16 - Part 2 - The Sure Heart's Release - Our longing is to realize and embody loving presence, yet we each have deeply conditioned habits that bind our hearts. This talk reflects on these habits, and explores how we can free ourselves by bringing a mindful, compassionate attention to places where we are most trapped in feeling separate, fearful and unworthy.

2011-02-16 - Guided Meditation: The Center of Now - Includes Body Scan

2011-02-09 - Guided Meditation - The Sky of Awareness

2011-02-29 - Part 1 - The Sure Heart's release - Our longing is to realize and embody loving presence, yet we each have deeply conditioned habits that bind our hearts. This talk reflects on these habits, and explores how we can free ourselves by bringing a mindful, compassionate attention to places where we are most trapped in feeling separate, fearful and unworthy. No class on December 25 - enjoy a favorite from 2011.

2013-12-18 - Part 2: Evolving Toward Unconditional Love - This two part series explores the evolutionary conditioning of fear and judgment that contracts us away from love and acceptance, and the quality of mindful presence - in relating inwardly and in communicating with others - that awakens and frees our hearts. Included at the end: "Holiday Dharma" - fun and song from La Sarmiento as part of IMCW's 2013 winter solstice celebration.

2013-12-18 - Guided Meditation: Being Presence 2

2013-12-11 - Part 1: Evolving Toward Unconditional Love - This two part series explores the evolutionary conditioning of fear and judgment that contracts us away from love and acceptance, and the quality of mindful presence - in relating inwardly and in communicating with others - that awakens and frees our hearts.

2013-12-11 - Guided Meditation: Space & Aliveness

2013-10-23 - Wings of Homecoming (retreat talk) - Part of incarnating is to feel separate and forget the mysterious oneness that is our home. This talk explores the two dimensions of awareness that when awakened reveal the openness, lucidity and love that expresses our true nature.

2013-11-27 - The Evolving of Generosity - This talk explores how we can open out of the habit of grasping and deliberately nourish our natural capacity for generosity, for living love.

2013-11-27 Guided Meditation: Listening to & Feeling the Moment

2013-11-20 Accessing Innate Wisdom - Wisdom is an innate capacity, but often covered over by trance. This talk explores how we abandon ourselves as we busily seek ways to feel more worthy, loveable and safe. We then look at the pathway home, the radical non-doing and space of silence that allows wisdom and love to flow through.

2013-11-20 Guided Meditation: Choiceless Awareness

2013-11-13 - Part 2 - Vulnerability, Intimacy and Spiritual Awakening - We each live with uncertainty and the fear of rejection and loss, and we each are conditioned to avoid feeling or expressing that vulnerability. Yet intimacy with this unlived life is the gateway to connecting authentically with others, full aliveness and spiritual realization. These talks explore the ways that we defend ourselves, and the pathway to gently, wisely and intelligently disarming and freeing our hearts.

2013-11-13 - Guided Meditation: Breath & Presence

2013-11-06 - Part 1: Vulnerability, Intimacy, & Spiritual Awakening - We each live with uncertainty and the fear of rejection and loss, and we each are conditioned to avoid feeling or expressing that vulnerability. Yet intimacy with this unlived life is the gateway to connecting authentically with others, full aliveness and spiritual realization. These talks explore the ways that we defend ourselves, and the pathway to gently, wisely and intelligently disarming and freeing our hearts.

2013-11-06-Guided Meditation: Continuous Space, Filled with Awareness

2013-10-30 - Healing Self-Doubt - Siddhartha Gautama’s last challenge before enlightenment was doubt, and to some degree, most of us live with limiting beliefs about our own worthiness and goodness. This talk looks at the tenacity of self-doubt and the power of mindfulness, investigation and compassion in releasing its grip.

2013-10-30 - Guided Meditation: Relaxing Back into Presence

2013-10-20 SatPM (retreat) Guided Forgiveness Practice - Instructions, then a guided forgiveness meditation.

2013-10-19 - The Heartspace That is Our True Home - (retreat talk) - By dedicating ourselves to loving the life that is right here--ourselves--we discover the heartspace that holds this world. This talk explores the pathways of forgiveness, offering and letting in love, and gratitude that reveal the vastness of loving presence.

2013-10-16 - Part 2: Happiness - This 2-part series explores conditioned and unconditioned happiness: What blocks us from experiencing true well-being, and the skillful means that allow this natural expression of our being to shine through.

2013-10-16 Guided Meditation: Listening to, and Feeling, the Moment

2013-10-09 - Part 1: Happiness - This 2-part series explores conditioned and unconditioned happiness: What blocks us from experiencing true well-being, and the skillful means that allow this natural expression of our being to shine through. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-10-09 - Guided Meditation: Being Presence

2013-10-02 - Loving Life, Loving Earth - What will it take to have us collectively awaken to the suffering of our earth and respond? This talk looks at how we are destroying our larger body, the earth; what stops us from recognizing and opening to the suffering of loss, and ways we can evolve our consciousness and act on behalf of this precious life. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-10-02 - Guided Meditation: Choosing Living Presence

2013-09-25 - Part 2: Entering the Wilderness - On all spiritual paths, we journey into the inner wilderness to discover the nature of nature - the truth of who we are. The entry is through bringing a kind and full presence to the life of our bodies. These two talks explore the conditioning that leads us to dissociation, and the blessings of full aliveness, open heartedness and wisdom that arise when we come home to embodied presence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-09-25 - Guided Meditation - Vipassana (Insight or Mindfulness)

2013-09-18 - Part 1 - Entering the Wilderness - On all spiritual paths, we journey into the inner wilderness to discover the nature of nature - the truth of who we are. The entry is through bringing a kind and full presence to the life of our bodies. These two talks explore the conditioning that leads us to dissociation, and the blessings of full aliveness, open heartedness and wisdom that arise when we come home to embodied presence.Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-09-18 Guided Meditation: Embodied Presence

2013-09-11 - Peace Work - The hope for inner and world peace lies in our evolutionary capacity to shift from Fight-Flight-Freeze reactivity to responding to aggravation with Attend-Befriend. This talk explores the three elements on this path of awakening that support us in this transformation: Remembering our true aspiration; taking full responsibility (for whatever arises in our experience) and widening the circles of our caring to include all beings. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-09-11 - Guided Meditation: Breath and Awareness

2013-09-04 - From Egoic to Unconditioned Loving - When we are caught in the sense of separation and unmet needs, our love is marbled with fear and attachment. This talk describes the chain of conditioning that perpetuates the constrictions of egoic love and explores several courageous activities--sharing our vulnerability, expressing love, extending and receiving love-- that awaken us to the vastness and freedom of pure loving awareness. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-09-04 - Guided Meditation - Letting Life Be As It Is

2013-08-28 - Part 2: Relating to the Fearsome Deities - Whenever Mara--the shadow side--appeared during the Buddha's life, his response was simple and liberating: "I see you Mara," and,"Please, come…let's have tea." In that spirit, this talk explores three approaches to relating to fear with a mindful and compassionate presence. The flute meditation at the end of the talk is given by Akal Dev. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-08-28 - Guided Meditation: Rest As Presence

2013-08-21 - Part 1: Relating to the Fearsome Deities - Our relationship to fear shapes our life experience. If we are unconscious, and reflexively try to manage fear, our identity takes the shape of the body of fear. If instead we learn to attend and befriend fear, we discover the freedom of our awakened heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-08-21 - Guided Meditation: Resting As Awareness

2007-09-26 - The Gift of Silence - Through all spiritual traditions, there is a valuing of silence and stillness. When the mind has quieted, it becomes possible to see into the truth of what we are. Yet quieting can turn into a battle with the process of the thinking mind. This talk explores practices that allow us to settle in a natural way, the presence which is silence itself, and the wisdom and love that flows freely when we live from that silence. Please support the continuation of this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Thank you for your generosity.

2007-09-26 - Guided Meditation: Into the Stillness

2013-08-07 - True Belonging - We all have a longing to belong. When pursued at the egoic level--often through our good-personhood projects--there may be temporary satisfaction but our sense of separation is ultimately reinforced. In contrast, bringing mindfulness and compassion to whatever is arising dissolves the sense of separation and reveals the basic goodness of our own loving presence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!

2013-08-07 - Guided Meditation - The Aliveness and Space of Presence

2009-09-09 - From Story to Presence - A fundamental skill cultivated through meditation is awakening from our stories and arriving back in the aliveness of the moment. If we investigate, we find that a large portion of our stories create physical and emotional stress, separate us from others, and obscure the truth of who we are. In this talk you are invited to identify several of your "top ten hits", explore how these stories live in your body, and reconnect with living presence.

2009-09-09 - Relaxing the Heart

2013-07-24 - Three Gestures of Love - If we inquire "what is between me and presence" we usually find we've been caught inside a limiting story of self, contracted by wants and fears. This talk explores a simple yet powerful way of arousing loving presence and dissolving the narrow identification that keeps us from inhabiting our awakened heartmind.