Tara Brach

2013-04-17 - Entering the Mystery - John O'Donahue writes, "We are so busy managing our lives, we forget this great mystery we are involved in." This talk looks at the ways we pull away from the mystery and the path of "beginners mind" that enables us to encounter this living world with freshness, courage and wonder. 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!

2013-04-10 - Heavenly Messengers - Tara interviews Frank Ostaseski, founder of Zen Hospice, on a contemplative approach to death and dying. 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!

2013-04-03 - Part 3: Three Blessings - Looking In the Mirror - The third gift on the journey of awakening is the mirror. In this talk we explore how to look back into our own minds and discover the timeless, radiant presence that is our essence. It is this realization of our Beingness that enables us to live these lives with wisdom, love and wonder. 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!

2013-03-27 - Part 2: Three Blessings - Inner Fire - Each of us has the longing to manifest our full potential--to realize and live from loving, awake awareness. This longing is our inner fire, and when conscious and vibrant, it energizes the spiritual path. In this talk we reflect on how fear obscures and redirects our inner fire, and how practices of presence and wise reflection awaken the power and purity of our longing. 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!

2009-10-26 - (retreat talk) Self Compassion - We can only find love and peace in this life if we are able to hold our inner life with compassion. This talk explores the subtle and therefore often unseen ways that we turn on ourselves, and the pathways to a forgiving 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!

2013-03-13 - Part 1: Three Blessings of Awakening Consciousness - In this two part series we explore the evolution of consciousness through the lens of three key capacities: A forgiving heart, inner fire (conscious aspiration toward freedom) and self-inquiry. 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!

2010-12-31 - Minting Gold - Embodying the Awakened Heart - Our core conditioning expresses as both a longing for love and the pain of not trusting we are loveable. This talk explores how we create the experience of separation, and the key meditative heart- trainings that lead us to realizing and living from the truth of our connectedness. NOTE: Snowed out on Wednesday, so offering a retreat talk from 2010. 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!

2010-06-16 - The Fires of Loss - We all encounter the great losses of our own health and life, and of cherished others. We are conditioned to resist opening to the rawness and grief that comes with loss. This talk describes the refuge of presence in the face of loss, and the gift of timeless love that arises as we make peace with the reality of this living, dying world. NOTE: Tara was traveling this week, so offering a well-loved talk from 2010. 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!

2013-02-20 - Beyond the Interpreted World - Hildegard of Bingen writes, "An interpreted world is not a Home." This talk explores the suffering that arises from believing in an interpreted reality, and the love, aliveness and freedom that becomes accessible as we challenge beliefs and awaken into living 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!

2013-02-13 - The Wings of a Liberating Presence - No matter what is happening in our lives, if we relate to our experience with mindful recognition and an allowing presence, it becomes a portal to freedom. In this talk we explore how the cultivation of these wings of presence awakens us from the identification with an egoic self, and reveals the awareness and love that is our true nature. 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!

2013-02-06 - Embodying True Refuge--Serving and Savoring Life - This talk traces the story of the Buddha's awakening, and reflects on four key archetypal elements that are relevant for each of us as we come home to our true nature. There is a particular emphasis on how these elements enable us to encounter challenges in relationships and find our way to openhearted presence. Includes music honoring the launch of Tara's new book, True Refuge: vocal by La Sarmiento and Kirtan band with Guru Ganesha. 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!

2013-01-30 - Remembering What Matters - Our conscious aspiration toward awakening is what energizes the spiritual path. This talk reviews the main characteristic of a vital aspiration, the conditioning that obscures our deepest intentions and offers guided reflections to connect us with what most matters. 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!

2012-12-29 - (retreat talk) The God Whom I Love is Inside - Our suffering arises from unlived life--the fears and loneliness and hurt that we have been unable to digest and include in our heart. This talk explores our conditioning to become dis-embodied and the blessings of spiritual realization that arise as we inhabit our aliveness fully. 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!

2013-01-16 - Stepping Out of the Cave - If we are suffering it is because we are believing something that is not true. This talk explores the genesis of our core beliefs and the investigation, mindfulness and compassion that can release their grip. 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!

2013-01-09 - The Barriers to Loving Presence - You might reflect on someone important to you, and ask: "What is between me and loving fully?" Notice what happens. This talk explores the ways we create separations from others, and the power of inquiry and presence to awaken an unconditionally loving 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!

2013-01-02 - Finding True Refuge - This talk explores the three classic gateways to peace and freedom and includes a living ritual that invites us to bring a conscious, sincere dedication to our awakening on the spiritual path. 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!

2012-12-31 - Meditation - Awakening Compassion - Our deepest wisdom and purest actions arise out of open-hearted presence. This meditation is drawn from the Tibetan tradition and carries us home to the vastness of 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!

2012-12-19 - Turning Toward the Light - This solstice talk explores how, in the face of darkness - unconsciousness, ignorance, violence - we can call on the light that is within us. The two pathways are to courageously look directly into the places of suffering, and to include in our gaze, the intrinsic goodness in all beings, in 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!

2012-12-12 - A Forgiving Heart - Living with chronic blame or resentment is a trance that confines us to a limited fragment of what we are. This talk looks at the ways this trance is fueled and the process by which we release the armoring around our hearts. 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!

2012-12-05 - A Forgiving Heart - Embracing our Inner Life - Self-aggression, whether it's low key blame or deep condemnation, prevents us from intimacy with others and discovering the truth and wholeness of our Being. This talk explores how we can release self-blame, and free ourselves to access our natural warmth and creativity in responding to our world. 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!

2012-11-28 - Guided Meditation - A Forgiving Heart - Forgiveness is the letting go of armor we have erected around our heart. While forgiving is a life-long process, it can be engaged and deepened by practices such as the one offered here. The best attitude in approaching this meditation is one of gentleness and clear intention. Reflect on what matters to you, and then let go of any judgments or expectations as to how the meditation "should" unfold. Blessings! 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!

2012-11-21 - Gratitude and Generosity - Markings of Inner Freedom - Those who are genuinely happy, are also naturally grateful for life and generous in living. This Thanksgiving Eve talk explores key ways we block the arising of gratitude and generosity, and practices of mindful presence and direct cultivation that awaken these expressions of the liberated 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!

2012-11-14 - Hands Off the Controls - We are deeply conditioned to respond to impermanence and inevitable loss by trying to control our experience. Our egoic reactivity prevents us from responding wisely to our life, and living the moments fully. This talk looks at how we can let go of controlling, open to the groundlessness we run from, and reconnect with the deep intelligence and love that flows through our being. 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!

2012-11-07 - Practical Dharma for Stressful Times - When we are caught in a stress reaction, we are in a trance that cuts us off from our creativity, full intelligence and capacity to be loving. This talk explores the flags of the stress-trance and three meditative strategies for shifting from fight/flight to attend/befriend. 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!

2012-10-27 - Loving the Life Within Us (retreat talk) - If we don't love the life we consider "self," we will not realize or live from the loving awareness that is our essence. This talk guides us in bringing a kind, accepting presence to our inner life, and discovering the vastness of what we really are. 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!

2012-10-24 - Wise Investigation: Dissolving the Trance - If we are suffering, it is because we are believing something that is not true and caught in emotional reactivity. A key tool in meditation is investigation--actively inquiring into what is happening inside us. When we investigate with sincere interest and care, the light of our attention untangles difficult emotions and nourishes intimate relationships. As this light is turned toward awareness itself, it reveals the radiance and emptiness of our true nature. 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!

2012-10-17 - Question and Response with Tara - 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!

2012-10-10 - Part 2 - Wise Intention--Living in Truth - Evolution has conditioned us to identify as an egoic self and to protect that identity. A key strategy is trying to control how others perceive us through pretense and deception. This talk explores the ways we disarm though dedicating ourselves to truthfulness, forgiving our defenses and taking a chance to name and make room for the vulnerability we have been armoring. 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!

2012-10-03 - Part 1 - Wise Intention--the Compass of our Hearts - One of the most powerful spiritual practices in the world is to reflect on your hearts deepest intention. These two talks look at the way that ego-based intentions perpetuate thoughts, feelings and actions that keep us imprisoned in feeling separate and limited. In contrast, remembering our deeper intentions call us home to the freedom of our true nature. 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!

2012-09-26 - Part 2 - Embodied Spirit - Our body--this changing field of sensation--is a portal into pure Being. These talks explore the resistance we have to embodied presence, the pathways that enable us to awaken through our bodies, and the blessings of realization that arise as we let go over and over into the aliveness of our senses. Part 2 specifically addresses the challenge of arriving in embodied presence when we are facing traumatic fear, and other intense and difficult emotions. 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!

2012-09-19 - Part 1 - Embodied Spirit - Our body--this changing field of sensation--is a portal into pure Being. These talks explore the resistance we have to embodied presence, the pathways that enable us to awaken through our bodies, and the blessings of realization that arise as we let go over and over into the aliveness of our senses. 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!

2012-09-12 - The Freedom of Yes - How do we accept ourselves or others when our actions are causing harm? Does acceptance mean passivity? Does it undermine our efforts towards change? This talk responds to these questions with a simple, illuminating and challenging principle about genuine transformation: Acceptance is the prerequisite of true healing and awakening. Only when we've paused to recognize and allow this moment's experience to be fully as it is, can we respond from our intelligence and compassion to prevent future suffering. 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!

2012-09-05 - Trance of the Unreal Other - We are conditioned to perceive people as unreal others- two dimensional characters who lack sentience, vulnerability and goodness. This is often most insidious when we filter people through demeaning culturally driven stereotypes. This talk explores the suffering of living in a trance that separates us from others, and how our practices of mindfulness and compassion enable us to experience what Thoreau calls the "miracle" of seeing through another's eyes, if only for a moment. 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!

2012-08-29 - Intimacy with Our Inner Life - Jung wrote that our suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche. This talk explores ways we can establish a healing presence by recognizing and communicating with the parts of our being that we habitually ignore or judge. 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!

2012-08-22 - Part 2 - 1000 Serious Moves - We easily habituate to feeling stressed, leaning forward, trying to figure things out and get things done. The undercurrent is we are living reactively--resisting unpleasant experience, seeking out more comfort and ease-- perpetually wanting life to be different than it is. In response to this confined way of living, the Buddha invites us to discover our innate capacity for happiness, the wellbeing that arises in full presence. These two talks explore the ways we get caught in the trance of reactivity and grimness, and the pathways to unconditioned happiness. 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!

2012-08-15 - 1000 Serious Moves - We easily habituate to feeling stressed, leaning forward, trying to figure things out and get things done. The undercurrent is we are living reactively--resisting unpleasant experience, seeking out more comfort and ease-- perpetually wanting life to be different than it is. In response to this confined way of living, the Buddha invites us to discover our innate capacity for happiness, the wellbeing that arises in full presence. These two talks explore the ways we get caught in the trance of reactivity and grimness, and the pathways to unconditioned happiness. 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!

2012-08-08 - Real but not True - One of the most liberating realizations is that we don't have to believe our thoughts. In this talk we look at the suffering caused by limiting beliefs--"I am unworthy, unloveable, unsafe"--and the process by which we open into the full aliveness and potential of our being. 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!

2012-08-01 - Back to the Garden - The suffering of perceiving ourselves as separate selves expresses as fear, aggression, shame and a host of other afflictive emotions. This talk examines how, by taking refuge in the present moment, and taking refuge in love, we reconnect with our wholeness, and the timeless presence that is home. This inquiry includes a guided meditation on the power of prayer to carry us back to our natural belonging. 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!

2012-07-25 - Listening with an Awake Heart - Listening to our inner life and each other is the grounds of healing, intimacy and love. This talk explores the challenges to offering a listening presence, and the qualities of open receptivity and interest that nourish true communicating. 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!

(retreat talk) 2011-10-12 - Our True Nature--Emptiness Dancing - The most profound question in spiritual life is "who (or what) am I?" This talk explores ways of inquiring into the nature of awareness, and the blessings of embodying the realization of our radiant, empty essence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-04-28 - Introduction to the Heart Practices - These instructions on the heart practices were given at the IMCW 2012 Spring Retreat. A guided lovingkindness or "metta" meditation to open the heart and come home to presence follows. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-07-04 - Part 2 - Freedom: Taking the Backward Step - This talk investigates the core conditioning that creates and sustains trance. We then explore two gateways to realizing and inhabiting our true nature - inquiry and letting go. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-6-27 - Part 1 - Freedom: Seeing Who is Looking Through the Mask - We suffer when we are identified with our egoic conditioning and unable to recognize the spirit - the love and awareness - that animates our own and all beings. In this talk we explore how recognizing our vulnerability and basic goodness helps us to see through the mask and realize who is here. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-06-20 - Cultivating Equanimity (Duck Meditation) - Equinimity, the mindful presence that neither grasps nor resists experience, is the grounds for unconditional love and wise action. This talk explores the conditioning that entraps us in reactivity, and two primary pathways for coming home to this natural state of balance and presence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-06-13 - Committing to Joy - What makes joy rare? How do we awaken this beautiful capacity to embrace life? In this talk we explore the obstacles to joy and the attitude and practices that free us to "love what is." Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-06-06 - Cultivating Compassion - We each have the potential to live with a compassionate, open heart. In this talk we explore the conditioning that closes us off to authentic caring, and the ways of deepening our attention that help us live to include widening circles of beings in our heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-05-30 - Intimacy with Life - Awakening Love - The Buddha taught about four Divine Abodes--dwelling places of the awakened heart mind: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In this four-part series, we will explore the ways our conditioning blocks us from these expressions of inner freedom, and the understandings and practices that enable us to inhabit our full potential. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-05-23 - Training for Intimacy with Life - "Enlightenment is intimacy with all things" teaches Zen Master Dogen. While we long for this intimacy, we are conditioned to avoid the vulnerability and fear that an intimate presence can arouse. This talk explores how our mindfulness and heart practices cultivate the capacity to be intimate with our sensations of aliveness, our emotions and the beings in our life. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-05-16 - Part 2: The Lion's Roar - The Buddha taught that faith--trust in our true nature--is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant and full. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!

2012-05-09 - Part 1: The Lion's Roar - The Buddha taught that faith--trust in our true nature--is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant and full. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!