Tara Brach

The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening - Part 2 (2016-02-17) - In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience.  These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult “stuck” places, how inquiry enables us to become more intimate and understanding of others, and in the deepest way, how inquiry can reveal the deepest truth of what we are…our true nature. The talks include several guided reflections that can enrich your meditation practice and serve spiritual awakening. "If we don't bring inquiry from the neck down, we cannot untangle the tangles. Our emotional life lives in our body, so inquiry needs to be embodied. One of the misconceptions of inquiry is that it's analytic - that it's conceptual... it's not. Inquiry is shining the light of awareness to what's actually happening - moment to moment in our bodies." Tara's website: www.tarabrach.com Join Tara’s

This guided meditation includes a full body scan, and the recognition of the formless awareness that includes and is source of all experience. By recognizing that awareness we discover the silence and stillness that is the ground of all experience. Free download of Tara’s new 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Reflection: The Power of Inquiry - Untangling Emotional Tangles (2016-02-10) - This short meditation helps us get unstuck from emotional difficulty with the practice of Inquiry. We use the acronym RAIN as a guide, starting with Recognizing and Allowing what is arising, and then systematically Investigating (through inquiry) the limiting beliefs and reactive feelings that are challenging.  The meditation ends by offering Nourishment to our vulnerability with kindness, and discovering the shift in our own being…in our identity…that expresses increased freedom. (From the end of Part 1: The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening)

The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening (2016-02-10) - Parts I and II - In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience.  These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult “stuck” places, how inquiry enables us to become more intimate and understanding of others, and in the deepest way, how inquiry can reveal the deepest truth of what we are…our true nature. The talks include several guided reflections that can enrich your meditation practice and serve spiritual awakening. "True inquiry doesn't land on an answer. It opens to a mystery that's meant to be lived."

Meditation: Inhabiting Awake Awareness with Intro (2016-02-10) - This meditation begins with collecting attention with the breath, and awakens us to the experience of aliveness and inner space by scanning the body. We then open to receive all the senses in awake awareness, and to inhabiting that boundless receptive awareness that is our home.   Free download of Tara’s new 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Meditation: Inhabiting Awake Awareness(2016-02-10) - This meditation begins with collecting attention with the breath, and awakens us to the experience of aliveness and inner space by scanning the body.  We then open to receive all the senses in awake awareness, and to inhabiting that boundless receptive awareness that is our home. Free download of Tara’s new 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Three Attitudes that Nourish a Liberating Practice (2016-02-03) -  A key spiritual inquiry is, “In this moment, what most serves awakening?” Rather than a particular style of meditation practice, it is our way of relating to our experience - our attitude - that frees our hearts. This talk explores the attitudes that are an expression of our innately open, wakeful and loving awareness, and that carry us to realization.

Meditation - Space, Aliveness and Letting Be (2016-02-03) - This practice guides us into the openness of awareness, and then invites a deep resting, a letting be. Free download of Tara’s new 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Part 2: Three Blessings on the Journey - Drawing on a wonderful teaching story from the Upanishads, these two talks explore the role of forgiveness, inner fire and looking at our own minds, in finding freedom. Free download of Tara’s new 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Meditation: Center of Now (2012-02-01) - Tara is on retreat, so asked for a meditation from the archives to be posted.

Part 1: Three Blessings on the Journey - Drawing on a wonderful teaching story from the Upanishads, these two talks explore the role of forgiveness, inner fire and looking at our own minds, in finding freedom. Free download of Tara’s new 10 min meditation: “Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease” when you join her email list.

Morning Meditation Instruction with Question and Response (retreat) (2015-12-29) - "Discover what’s happening here, beyond the veil of thinking.” Tara gives additional instructions and responds to questions after the morning meditation at the 2015 IMCW New Year retreat.

Widening the Circles of Compassion (retreat talk) (2015-12-31) - The archetypal figure of the Bodhisattva ("awakening being") reflects our potential to realize our connectedness with all beings, and care for this living world with an open tender heart. This talk explores the four types of patterning that keep us stuck in the pain of separation and the key heart practices that evolve us on the bodhisattva path. "Compassion arises when you see the truth behind the veils." 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 thanks and love, Tara

Meditation: RAIN of Compassion (retreat) (2015-12-29) - This new version of the acronym RAIN is a powerful way of bringing compassion to the life within you, and to attuning and deepening compassion for others. (from the 2015 New Year's retreat - a guided heart meditation)

Gateways of Remembrance: The Three Refuges (2016-01-06) - This talk explores the traditional refuges of awareness (buddha nature), truth (dharma) and love (sangha) that are at the heart of Buddhism, and found in many spiritual and religious traditions. It includes a look at our false refuges - strategies that seek to comfort and gratify, but are temporary fixes - and moves into reflections that help us remember, trust and live from our true nature.  (Concludes with a ceremony tying red cords in remembrance of the refuges.)

Meditation: Relaxing Open (2016-01-06) Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Relax, right now, and rest. - Tilopa

Meditation: Letting Life Be (from 2010-09-22) - Tara is teaching retreat this week, so wanted to share this meditation from 2010 with you.

The Power of Mindful Investigation (from 2010-09-22) - We each have a deep interest in reality–in understanding what is true and who we are. In Buddhist teachings, our interest, and its expression in wise investigation, energize the path of awakening. This talk explores how mindful investigation can free us from emotional suffering, nourish loving relatedness and create the conditions for deep spiritual realization. (Tara is on retreat this week, so she asked to share this talk from 2010.)

Meditation: Seeing the Goodness (2015-12-23) (6:11 min) - When we focus on what we appreciate in others, our very attention helps allow that person to shine (a practice meditation from the end of the "Secret Beauty - Solstice talk").

Reflection: Learning to Stay (2015-12-23) (4:30 min) - We open the door to healing by bringing a mindful and kind attention to inner vulnerability and fear (from "Secret Beauty - Solstice talk).