Tara Brach

Meditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves (from retreat) - We can’t truly open to the waves of life unless we recognize our Oceanness, the formless awareness that is our source. This meditation begins with awakening the senses and then invites us to discover the spacious presence in the background of all experience. NOTE: Given on the 4th morning of the 2018 IMCW New Year’s Retreat. It’s especially enjoyed when the mind is a bit quieter. You might reflect on these words from the Tibetan tradition: "Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating awareness."

A Grateful, Giving, Happy Heart - Gratitude is like breathing in – letting ourselves be touched by the goodness in others and in our world. Generosity is like breathing out – sensing our mutual belonging and offering our care. When we are awake and whole, breathing in and out happens naturally. But these beautiful expressions of our heart become blocked when we are dominated by the fear and grasping of our survival brain. This talk explores how we can facilitate the evolution of consciousness with the deliberate cultivation of generosity, and ends with a guided meditation on gratitude and generosity.

Meditation: Touching Peace - This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go. The meditation ends with a beautiful verse from poet Philip Booth.

The Calling of These Times - Part 2 - The Dalai Lama invites us to trust in the power of heart and awareness to awake through all circumstances. What does that look like in the midst of our current global crises? These two talks explore what these times are drawing forward in us individually and collectively, and how we can live true to the full wisdom and love of our beings.

Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart - In the midst of difficulty we need access to our deepest wisdom and love. This guided meditation calls forth this loving presence by opening to the heart and spirit of whatever being in our life we most experience as calm, wise and compassionate.

The Calling of These Times - Part 1 - The Dalai Lama invites us to trust in the power of heart and awareness to awake through all circumstances. What does that look like in the midst of our current global crises? These two talks explore what these times are drawing forward in us individually and collectively, and how we can live true to the full wisdom and love of our beings.

Meditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves - We can’t truly open to the waves of life unless we recognize our Oceanness, the formless awareness that is our source. This meditation begins with awakening the senses and then invites us to discover the spacious presence in the background of all experience (from the 2018 IMCW New Year’s Retreat). It’s especially enjoyed when the mind is a bit quieter. You might reflect on these words from the Tibetan tradition: Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating awareness.

Three Practices for Nurturing Wise Hope - Wise or spiritual hope includes the aspiration to manifest our full potential, individually and collectively, and the trust that this is possible. This talk explores how, especially in stressful times, this hope gets clouded over by fear; and how when it is alive, wise hope energizes and guides all spiritual transformation. We look at three practices - 3 A’s - that help us nurture hope: Aspiration for what we love, Attending to what we love, and Actively serving what we love. This talk includes several poems by poet Danna Faulds.

Meditation: Befriending Our Experience - We begin the meditation with a sense of befriending our experience - with an intention towards gentleness and kindness as the attention goes inward. We scan the body, opening to sounds and the senses, resting in the awareness that includes this changing life. When the mind drifts, as it naturally does, we notice, then relax back into a receptive, listening presence. There’s nothing to do, simply letting life be as it is. Resting in the freedom of awake, open awareness.

Cultivating Inner Strength – A Conversation with Tara Brach and Lori Deschene - What gives us the inner strength to meet life’s challenges with resilience, heart and wisdom? Drawing on themes in Lori’s new book, "The Tiny Buddha’s Inner Strength Journal," Tara and Lori explore the mindset that is conducive to growth, working with negative beliefs, ways of transforming fear, and what it means to have inner strength in facing loss and death. We also talk about what can most empower and energize us in responding to a world struggling with multiple crises. Find Lori Deschene’s “The Tiny Buddha’s Inner Strength Journal” here: tinybuddha.com/strong. Lori also created several free companion resources, available at tinybuddha.com/strength-tools.  

Meditation: At Home in the Moment - This meditation cultivates a gentle, wakeful presence in the body, with the “smile down” and then guides us to resting in a home base of sensations or the breath. We then open to whatever arises with a clear and inclusive attention, saying "Yes" to the life that is here.

Beyond the Controlling Self - Part 2  - It’s natural that we do what we can to ward off danger and further ourselves. While our control strategies – such as aggression, judging, planning, seeking approval, pretending – have a developmental role, they are not a recipe for happiness, intimacy and freedom. An essential part of our evolution is to recognize when we are over-managing our lives, and learn to let go of the controls. These talks explore how we can release the grip of the over-controller, and the profound awakening of our hearts and minds that is possible in the shift from doing to being.

Meditation: Letting Life Be - This meditation establishes an atmosphere of loving kindness with the “smile”; relaxes and awakens through the body; and guides us into a spacious presence. We then rest in that presence, letting go of any controlling, and simply allow life to be as it is. It’s in “letting be” that we come home to the luminosity and tenderness of natural awareness. We close with a verse from Mary Oliver…

Beyond the Controlling Self - Part 1 - It’s natural that we do what we can to ward off danger and further ourselves. While our control strategies – such as aggression, judging, planning, seeking approval, pretending – have a developmental role, they are not a recipe for happiness, intimacy and freedom. An essential part of our evolution is to recognize when we are over-managing our lives, and learn to let go of the controls. These talks explore how we can release the grip of the over-controller, and the profound awakening of our hearts and minds that is possible in the shift from doing to being.  

Meditation: Letting Go into Living Presence - This guided meditation starts with a scan that invites relaxing and awakening through the body. We then allow life – sounds, sensations, aliveness – to live through us, resting in open presence. When there is tightening, holding or confinement in thoughts, we recognize and re-open, letting go into the presence that is always here.

The Liberating Power of Conscious Intention – Part 2 - While we can’t change our past, we have the capacity in this moment to remember our deepest intention and seed the future. Intention can become the compass of our heart, guiding and creating our life experience. In these two talks we explore how we awaken mindfulness of intention and how, when we are caught in habits that create suffering, we can find our way home to the deep intention that heals and frees us. These two talks include reflections and practices that can bring the power of intention alive in your life.

Meditation: Resting in the Center of Now - This meditation awakens our senses and then guides us to rest in the changing flow of experience. When the mind drifts, we are invited to relax back into full living presence, into that Beingness that is the center of now.

The Liberating Power of Conscious Intention – Part 1 - While we can’t change our past, we have the capacity in this moment to remember our deepest intention and seed the future. Intention can become the compass of our heart, guiding and creating our life experience. In these two talks we explore how we awaken mindfulness of intention and how, when we are caught in habits that create suffering, we can find our way home to the deep intention that heals and frees us. These two talks include reflections and practices that can bring the power of intention alive in your life.

Meditation: Calling on Your Future Self - We have within us the wisdom and compassion that can carry us through the most challenging times. This meditation guides us in accessing these inner resources by calling on the most evolved part of our being.

Radical Acceptance - Our Gateway to Love and Freedom - Our capacity to realize the truth of who we are and to love fully, arises from moments of true acceptance. This means meeting our unfolding life with an unconditional, open and tender presence. This talk on Radical Acceptance explores how the trance of unworthiness contracts us away from presence, and how activating mindfulness and self-compassion with RAIN loosens the grip of self-aversion and awakens our hearts.