Tara Brach

Meditation: Breathing Our Way to Peace and Freedom (2017-05-10) - This meditation guides us in collecting attention with an intentional long deep breath, and awakening a full relaxed presence as the breath resumes in its natural rhythm. Resting fully in this presence is the gateway to deep peace and inner freedom. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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

Relaxing the Over-Controller - Part 2 (2017-05-03) (retreat talk) - We all have conditioning to do what we can to protect and promote our wellbeing. Our suffering arises to the degree that our life and identity become organized around controlling our experience. These two talks look at the emergence of the fear based “over-controller,” and explore a wise way of witnessing the suffering that comes with over-controlling, and awareness practices that naturally relax and awaken us to our whole and natural Being. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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: Know That You're Here, Right Here (2017-04-29) - Given the first morning of the 2017 IMCW Spring Retreat, this meditation guides you through a body scan, opens to sounds, then expands to the body as a field of sensation. With no closing bells, it can serve as a way to start a longer meditation sit, or to start your journey for the day.

Relaxing the Over-Controller  - Part 1 (2017-04-26) - We all have conditioning to do what we can to protect and promote our wellbeing. Our suffering arises to the degree that our life and identity become organized around controlling our experience. These two talks look at the emergence of the fear based “over-controller," and explore a wise way of witnessing the suffering that comes with over-controlling, and awareness practices that naturally relax and awaken us to our whole and natural Being. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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 Center of Now (2017-04-26) - 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. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Ask the Friend for Love - Prayer, when cultivated consciously, energizes and guides us on the spiritual path. This talk investigates the difference between wanting, with its narrow fixation, and the prayer that arises out of our deep heart’s longing. We explore how living prayer, the prayer that arises from consciously inhabiting longing, can carry us home to loving presence. As John O’Donahue writes, prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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 That is Home - "No matter how far you've wandered, this heartspace - this awake tender awareness - is only a half-breath of remembrance away." This meditation awakens attention to the space of awareness. It is a favorite from 2015. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Sure Heart's Release - (a favorite from 2015) - The pathway to our awakened heart includes deep recognition of our barriers to love, and as we open, the courage to express our love. This talk includes a reflection and practice that can support us in inhabiting our full capacity for loving presence. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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

Guided Heart Meditation: Loving Presence - This meditation introduces the loving-kindness (metta) heart practice. After brief instruction, it begins with scanning the body, filling it gradually with the image of a smile. The meditation continues with a loving-kindness practice - sensing loving presence of someone easy to love, our own being, then offering care to others. (from 2015 fall IMCW weeklong silent retreat)

Soul Recognition: The Practice of Namaste (2017-04-05) - In our daily trance we experience ourselves and others through a filter of wants, fears, stories and beliefs. Drawing on an engaging story from the legends of King Arthur, this talk explores how we can see past this conditioning by learning to see - in ourselves and others - vulnerability, goodness and awareness itself. Sometimes called “soul recognition,” this seeing is the essence of “Namaste” - realizing and honoring the sacredness that shines through all beings. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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: Awakening through the Inner Body (2017-04-05) - When we attune to the inner body, we discover a field of energy and aliveness that is the portal to pure presence. This meditation guides our attention to the inner body, opens to the play of sound and invites us to rest in the awake awareness that includes and is the grounds of this living world. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease" when you join her email list.

Healing Addiction: De-conditioning the Hungry Ghosts (2017-03-22) - This talk examines the suffering that arises when due to unmet needs for love and safety, our desire becomes narrowed and fixated on substitute gratifications. We then explore how we can bring mindfulness and self-compassion to the habits of obsessing, over-consuming and hurting ourselves and others that keep us from true happiness, connectedness and peace. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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: Loving Presence - with smile body scan (2017-03-29) - This guided meditation helps cultivate the heartspace that can hold our life with tenderness and grace. We begin by using the image and felt sense of a smile in a body scan, and then open to the spacious presence that includes the changing moment to moment flow of experience. The meditation closes with a few minutes of offering loving blessings to our inner life, dear ones in need and all beings. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Taking "The Exquisite Risk”: An Undefended Heart (2017-03-22) - Poet Mark Nepo uses the phrase “exquisite risk” to describe our willingness to be fully alive, open, available,  living true to our heart. This talk explores the challenges and blessings of taking the exquisite risk, both in becoming more intimate with our inner life, and in engaging with others from full authenticity. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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: Relaxing Back into Full Presence (2017-03-22) - This guided practice begins with a conscious breath that relaxes the body and mind, and then a body scan to awaken to the aliveness of the present moment. We then open into the natural awareness that includes the changing flow of sounds, feelings and sensations, and practice “relaxing back” when the mind gets lost in thought. Free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease when you join her email list.

Reflection - The Compass of Our Heart (2017-03-15) - When we are remembering our deepest intention in any situation, our lives become aligned, and we can act with grace, compassion and wisdom. These reflections will help you remember your intention when caught in conflict, and in a larger way, allow the truth of impermanence to carry you into the very source of longing - loving awareness itself. NOTE: from the end of "Realizing Your Deepest Desires" - full talk podcasted and at: https://www.tarabrach.com/realizing-deepest-desires/. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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

Realizing Your Deepest Desires (2017-03-15) - This talk differentiates between egoic intentions (driven by wants and fears), and our true aspiration (deepest desires) to manifest our full potential for awake awareness and love. We explore ways to realize and open to our deepest desires when we are stuck in self-promotion, grasping and conflict, so that our aspiration becomes a compass of the heart that can guide us in living with wisdom and compassion. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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 - Letting Thought Clouds Come and Go (2017-03-15) - This meditation guides us through a body scan and into a relaxed, open presence. When we realize we are lost in a thought cloud, our practice is to relax open, listening to and feeling the life of the present moment. We are training to become increasingly aware of the gap between thoughts, the space where the light of awareness shines through. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Healing Trauma: The Light Shines Through the Broken Places (2017-03-08) - Most of us have encountered trauma either in our own direct experience or with someone in our immediate circle. This talk examines the shame and suffering that arise from trauma and how meditation practices can support a path to full spiritual healing. We focus on practices that help us access a sense of love and safety, and then increase our capacity to bring presence to the unprocessed, unlived life in the body. (Note: For many who suffer from PTSD, therapy is invaluable and these practices are not considered as a substitute.)   Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks 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: Getting Lost and Coming Back Here (2017-03-08) - This meditation establishes a sense of presence, of being Here, through a body scan and awakening the senses. We then notice when we’re lost and relax back into the wakeful stillness - the Hereness - that is our true home. Our practice concludes with the beautiful poem “Lost” by David Wagoner. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.