Tara Brach

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.

Listening to the Song - Part 2 (2017-03-01) - Listening is more than a communications skill, it is a capacity that awakens our awareness. As we learn to listen inwardly, we begin to understand and care for the life that is here. And as we listen to others, that same intimacy emerges. In this two-part series we examine the blocks to listening and the practices that cultivate this essential domain of human potential. Our focus is both on the transformational power of listening in our personal lives, and also the necessity for deep listening if we are to bring healing to our wider society. 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: A Sky-Like Mind (2017-03-01) - This meditation begins with listening to sounds as a portal to spacious awareness. In addition to guiding attention to naturally occurring sounds, Tara plays chimes and gongs to deepen the experience of receptivity and openness. The meditation progresses to include all experience - sounds, sensations, thoughts, feelings - in the vast, transparent, timeless space of awareness. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Listening to the Song - Part 1 (2017-02-22) - Listening is more than a communications skill, it is a capacity that awakens our awareness. As we learn to listen inwardly, we begin to understand and care for the life that is here. And as we listen to others, that same intimacy emerges. In this two-part series we examine the blocks to listening and the practices that cultivate this essential domain of human potential. Our focus is both on the transformational power of listening in our personal lives, and also the necessity for deep listening if we are to bring healing to our wider society. 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

Reflection: Heart Wisdom of Your Future Self - By connecting with your future self, this reflection guides you in accessing the deep wisdom and unconditional love of your own awakening heart. "I returned to the river. I returned to the mountains. I begged - I begged to wed every object and creature. And when they accepted, God was ever present in my arms. And He did not say, 'Where have you been?' For then I knew my soul – every soul – has always held him." excerpted from: When I Was the Forest – Meister Eckhart https://thevalueofsparrows.com/2012/12/05/poetry-meister-eckhart/ 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

Being Truthful (2017-02-15) - The grounds of happiness, loving relationships and a just and flourishing society is honesty. And yet our current times are characterized by a plethora of deception - both societally, and often in more subtle ways, in our personal lives. This talk examines the deep conditioning we have to deceive others, and to avoid facing and acknowledging our own vulnerability. We then explore how we can commit ourselves to deepening our truth telling, and in so doing, creating a climate of integrity and trust that can lead to a more compassionate world. 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 - Sitting Like a Mountain (2017-02-15) - Meditation can empower us as we learn to access our potential for stability, strength and openness. This meditation calls on the image of a mountain as we awaken our body and mind to a full, vibrant presence. Meditation closes with a metta prayer. 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  

Trusting Our Awakening Heart (2017-02-08) - The more we trust that our awareness and heart are awakening, the more we find ease, grace and true empowerment in our lives. This talk explores two pathways of deepening our sense of belonging and trust: direct presence with the pain of separation, and turning toward the loving presence that is increasingly manifesting through these human forms. "...we need people who are able to respond from the heart - not from an angry or egoic reactivity, but from real wisdom." 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: At Home in the Moment (2017-02-08) - 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.

Love, and Death - Retreat Talk (2016-12-29) - To live our lives fully, we need to embrace the natural unfolding of birthing and dying. Yet we are deeply conditioned to resist loss, to pull away from fear and grief. Through a powerful Inuit story shared by Clarissa Estes, this talk explores how our practices of presence can open us to what we avoid, and free us to love without holding back. 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

Retreat Meditation: A Liberating Awareness - Embodying Full Presence (2016-12-30) - This vipassana meditation establishes fertile grounds for presence by gladdening the mind, a mindful body scan, collecting the attention and including all that arises in a kind, clear presence.

Darkness of the Womb - Four Key Steps in Transforming Suffering (2017-01-25) - We can either repeat old fear based patterns, or our suffering can awaken us to a deeper wisdom and greater love. This talk explores four principles in relating to difficulty that move us towards healing and freedom - both personally and as a society.

Meditation - The Return to Presence: Rest Your Mind In What Is (2017-01-25) - It’s natural that our attention wanders, and the more we relax back, the more that becomes our habit…returning to presence. This meditation opens with conscious breathing and awakening through the body. We then rest in open awareness, and when the attention drifts, guide ourselves to rest our minds, over and over, in the aliveness and presence that is right here. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Your Awake Heart Is Calling You (2017-01-18) - As individuals and societies, we are pulled by both the insecurity of our evolutionary past, and by our awake heart, our capacity for mindfulness and compassion. This talk explores the ways we can listen to and respond to the call of our awake heart, by training ourselves to open to vulnerability - our own and others - and widen the circles of 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: Awakening Compassion with Tonglen - Our hearts awaken as we let ourselves be touched by the suffering within and around us. They shine as we respond with care to what has touched us. This meditation uses the breath to guide us in letting in and contacting suffering, and offering out our love. With practice this meditation enables us to realize the truth of our connectedness and the luminous love that is intrinsic to awareness.

Meditation: A Witnessing, Kind Presence (2017-01-18) - Starting with scanning through the body and awakening the senses, we then rest in presence, with the breath as a home base. The meditation invites an openness to whatever arises, and a gentle kind attention if we encounter physical or emotional pain.  We end with a prayer that includes our own being and all beings. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Dissolving Trance with RAIN (2017-01-11) - One of the pervasive expressions of trance is identifying with a limited and separate sense of self.  This talk contrasts the self-trance to our intrinsically open, awake and loving awareness. We then explore how the mindfulness and self-compassion in the RAIN practice can directly dissolve trance and reconnect us to our true nature. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Meditation: Cultivating a Relaxed Attention (2017-01-11) - In this meditation we engage a relaxed and alert attention by scanning through the body, opening to sound, and resting in the awareness that includes all the senses. This presence is stabilized with the use of a home base, for many the breath, and reminders to “relax back” when the mind naturally drifts. Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Heart Meditation: Awakening Loving Presence (2016-12-31) ~ We each have an intrinsic capacity for loving presence, and there are powerful ways of paying attention that bring this potential alive. This meditation uses the image and felt sense of a smile to bring a relaxed receptivity to the body. We then engage with our future self (our Being when our heart is fully awake) and explore what it means to embody the fullness of that wisdom and love. (given on the last afternoon of the 2016 IMCW 5-day New Year's silent retreat)