Tara Brach

2015-02-11 - Part 1: Basic Elements of Meditation Practice - This two-part series offers a clear and fresh understanding of practices that cultivate mindful awareness. The first class examines our attitude towards practice and gives guidance on posture, establishing an anchor for attention, and learning to concentrate and collect the mind - “coming back.”  The second class focuses on the practice of mindfulness - “being here,” and the component qualities of clear recognition and an allowing non-judgmental presence. 

2015-02-11 - Meditation - Coming Back to the Breath

2014-12-31-Retreat Meditation - Forgiving Ourselves and Others - Instruction and guided heart forgiveness practice from the 2014 IMCW New Year's Retreat.

2015-01-28 - Inhabiting Our Bodies with Presence - Our conditioning is to pull away from our physical experience when it is difficult. When we regularly dissociate, we are removed from  the source of our power, intuition and capacity to love in a full way. This talk looks at the ways we leave our body and the path of homecoming to living loving presence.

2015-01-28 - Meditation: Living Presence

2015-01-21 - Listening to the Calling of Our Hearts - In any moment, our intention - what we are energetically wanting - shapes our life experience. While our deepest intention may be to realize and live from loving awareness, we are often driven by egoic fear and grasping. This talk explores how mindfulness can recognize our prevailing intention, and by staying present, kind and accepting, we can reconnect with the deeper longings that carry us to awakening and freedom.

2015-01-21 - Meditation: Awake Space - Relaxing Back Into Awareness

2015-01-14 Refuge in Loving Relationship - Bringing presence to our relationships reveals our connectedness and essential Oneness. This talk explores two domains of this awakening with others: Realizing our shared vulnerability - that we’re in it together - and recognizing the inherent goodness or sacredness that lives through everyone.

2015-01-14 - Meditation: Relaxing Back and Letting Life Be As It Is

2015-01-07 - Taking Refuge in Your Own True Nature - The three classic refuges of Buddha (awareness), Dharma (truth) and Sangha (loving relatedness) are each expressions of our deepest essence. This talk reflects on the refuges and includes guided meditations and a closing ritual that helps us remember the pathway home in our daily life. (note: to participate in the ritual you will need a piece of red string about 28 inches long)

2015-01-07 - Meditation: Living Open Presence

2014-12-30 - Retreat Talk - Landlocked in Fur - Three Domains of Formless Presence - While we have evolved to experience a defining sense of separate self, our potential is to awaken to the formless dimension - the pure awareness is our shared source. This talk explores how we can undo the identification with thoughts, emotions and feelings that keeps us landlocked and unable to trust and live from our naturally loving and radiant essence. (given at the 2014 IMCW New Year's Retreat in Reisterstown, MD) Poem at start of talk: "Landlocked in Fur" - by Tukaram. From: “Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West” (Ladinksy, 2002)

2014-12-30 Meditation - The Luminous Space of Awareness (given at the 2014 IMCW New Year's retreat in Reisterstown, MD) - This meditation shifts attention from form to the formless source of all Being. Discover and rest in continuous space, filled with the light of awareness.

2014-08-02 - (retreat talk) Embodying Loving Presence - This talk looks at the evolutionary fear-patterning that creates separation in our relationships, and at the practices that open us to giving and receiving love.

2014-12-17 - Part 2: Intimacy with Life - This season is one of celebrating the light and love that is our unifying source. And yet at these times our society is being forced to face its deep patterning of racial oppression, amongst other expressions of violence. These two talks investigate the process of turning against ourselves and others, and how intentional and deep presence can heal the suffering of separation.

2014-12-17 - Meditation: Light of Awareness

2014-12-10 - Part 1: Intimacy with Life - This season is one of celebrating the light and love that is our unifying source. And yet at these times our society is being forced to face its deep patterning of racial oppression, amongst other expressions of violence. These two talks investigate the process of turning against ourselves and others, and how intentional and deep presence can heal the suffering of separation.

2014-12-10 - Meditation: Intimacy with the Flow of Life

2014-10-30 - Removing the Barriers to Love - In our daily trance of feeling separate, we spend many moments wanting others to be different so we can feel better. This talk explores the heart awakening that unfolds when we deepen our commitment to seeing what is happening inside us. Only then can we see another with clear eyes, and realize the love that arises from our inherent Oneness.

2014-11-26 - A Generous Heart - Our deep potential is to live from an awake, loving heart. This talk looks at how, with a kind and mindful attention, we can decondition habitual tendencies toward grasping and self-centeredness, and nourish the sense of connectedness and care that gives rise to generosity. As we bring these heart practices alive in our most immediate relationships, they have the power to evolve consciousness in widening circles across the world.