Meditation: Cultivating a Gentle, Kind Attention - This meditation calls on the image and felt sense of a smile as we scan through the body, and invites a receptive and caring presence, as we open our attention to the changing flow of life. Join Tara's email community at http://eepurl.com/6YfI, to receive exclusive updates, events, and meditations. - Get a free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm and Ease," - plus a bonus gift: "8 Essential Tips to Nourish Your...
Dec 05, 2019•19 min
Gratitude: Entering Sacred Relationship - Gratitude arises when we are in sacred relationship with life—present, open and receptive. This talk explores how central gratitude is to our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and then looks at the ways we can directly gladden our minds with gratitude. We end with a guided meditation that includes sharings from the group, and a poem of blessing by John O'Donohue with a brief cut from Robert Gass - Om Namaha Shivaya.
Nov 29, 2019•52 min
Meditation: Being Here - This guided meditation is an invitation to rest in Hereness—the immediacy and aliveness of full presence. We arrive and quiet with a conscious long deep breath, relax our bodies, awaken our senses, and then bring our attention to relaxing with our moment-to-moment experience. The poem ends with a beautiful poem called "Interlude" by poet Danna Faulds. Join Tara's email community at http://eepurl.com/6YfI, to receive exclusive updates, events, and meditations. - Get a fre...
Nov 29, 2019•22 min
Listening to the Song - Part 2 (2019-11-20) - Listening is our gateway to intimacy with our inner life, each other, our earth and spirit. These two talks look at the ways that listening gets blocked and the teachings and practices that help us cultivate the gift of a deep and healing listening presence. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/ . With...
Nov 22, 2019•53 min
Meditation: Coming Home to Natural Presence (2019-11-20) - This meditation awakens our senses through a body scan and listening to sound, and then invites us to rest in the presence that spontaneously knows the changing stream of experience. Relaxing back and letting everything be just as it is, reveals the natural presence that is our true home. Join Tara's email community at http://eepurl.com/6YfI, to receive exclusive updates, events, and meditations. - Get a free download of Tara's 10 min me...
Nov 22, 2019•21 min
Meditation: The RAIN of Compassion (30 min) - The acronym RAIN (Recognize-Allow-Investigate-Nurture) is one of the most powerful tools I know for working with difficult emotions and discovering the freedom of an awake, compassionate presence. The 4-steps of RAIN are: Recognize what is happening; Allow the experience to be there, just as it is; Investigate with interest and care; Nurture with self-compassion. In the moments "After the RAIN," it's important to simply notice your own presence and r...
Nov 21, 2019•30 min
Meditation: Calling on Loving Presence - Often, when we're really struggling, the only way to find compassion for ourselves is by reaching out towards a loving awareness that is great enough to offer comfort and safety to our wounded self. When we feel held by a caring presence, by something larger than our small frightened self, we begin to find space in our heart for the difficult currents of our life, and for the lives of others. The suffering that might have seemed "too much" can now awaken ...
Nov 21, 2019•18 min
Listening to the Song - Part 1 (2019-11-13) - Listening is our gateway to intimacy with our inner life, each other, our earth and spirit. These two talks look at the ways that listening gets blocked and the teachings and practices that help us cultivate the gift of a deep and healing listening presence. Join Tara's email community at http://eepurl.com/6YfI, to receive exclusive updates, events, and meditations. - Get a free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mindful Breathing: Finding Calm a...
Nov 15, 2019•53 min
Meditation - The Silence that is Listening (2013-11-13) - Listening to sound is opens up to the space of pure being. In this guided practice we begin by awakening through the body, and then explore listening to sounds and silence, and to inhabiting the receptive presence that is listening, awareness itself. Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/ . ...
Nov 14, 2019•22 min
Judgment, Acceptance and Freedom (Retreat Talk) - The boundary to what we accept is the boundary to our freedom. This talk explores the often unconscious ways we create separation by judging ourselves and others, and the key pathways of meditation practice that release the habit of blame and free our hearts. (This talk was given on Sunday evening, November 3, at the 2019 IMCW Fall Retreat in Reisterstown, MD.)
Nov 08, 2019•55 min
Short Talk and Meditation: Saying Yes to Our Life - Our habitual ways of avoiding pain keep us from experiencing intimacy with our inner life and with each other. This short talk and guided meditation offers instruction in saying "yes" to the life we encounter. As we release resistance, we discover the creativity, wisdom and love that express our truest nature.
Nov 07, 2019•11 min
Anger: Responding, Not Reacting - Anger is natural, intelligent and necessary for surviving and flourishing. Yet when we are hooked by anger, it causes great personal and collective suffering. This talk explores how to transform patterns of reactivity by bringing a mindful and compassionate attention to the unmet needs that underlie angry reactivity. When we learn how to pause and connect honestly with our inner experience, we are then able to respond to others from our full intelligence and hea...
Nov 01, 2019•53 min
Meditating with RAIN - Working with Difficult Emotions - This guided practice applies mindfulness and self-compassion to challenging emotions. It is based on the acronym RAIN, and provides a four step practice that is accessible and effective, even at those times when mindfulness is most difficult to remember. The acronym RAIN is one of the most powerful tools I know for working with difficult emotions and discovering the freedom of an awake, compassionate presence.
Oct 31, 2019•12 min
Guided Meditation: Letting Go – 9 Magic Breaths (2019-07-19) - This guided practice includes taking a pause from all activity, and following the inflow and outflow of nine conscious breaths. We then relax and settle into greater and greater ease and well-being. Continuing as long as desired, we then explore re-entering activity with a relaxed and open attention.
Oct 30, 2019•6 min
Belonging to Each Other – Part 3 of 3 - Mother Teresa writes that if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. These three talks explore the causes for severed belonging, and pathways to deepening the felt sense of belonging to our own body, heart and spirit, and to all beings. Together the talks offer a natural and powerful progression of lovingkindness or metta reflections, that when practiced regularly can open us to the peace, joy and freedom of trusting...
Oct 25, 2019•50 min
Meditation: Awake and Alive - This guided practice includes a body scan, and an opening to the awareness that includes all of life. From that wakeful openness we offer a relaxed attentiveness to the changing flow, and end with loving kindness to ourselves and our world.
Oct 24, 2019•18 min
Reflection: RAIN on Blame - When we are stuck in blame or resentment we are in a trance - the other person becomes an unreal bad other, and our own sense of being contracts into a victimized self, an angry self, a righteous self. This practice guides us in bringing mindfulness and compassion to our inner experience, and then to viewing the other with a more open and clear heart. By awakening from the trance of blame, we are able to respond with intelligence and care to the unmet needs that under...
Oct 23, 2019•15 min
Belonging to Each Other – Part 2 of 3 (2019-10-16) - Mother Teresa writes that if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. These three talks explore the causes for severed belonging, and pathways to deepening the felt sense of belonging to our own body, heart and spirit, and to all beings. Together the talks offer a natural and powerful progression of lovingkindness or metta reflections, that when practiced regularly can open us to the peace, joy and freedo...
Oct 18, 2019•54 min
Meditation: Vast and Timeless Presence - The pathway to inhabiting our full presence is including, with mindfulness all parts of experience. This guided meditation explores how we can open, without resistance to the changing flow of sensations, feelings, thoughts and sounds, and discover the boundless awareness that is our true home. Join Tara's email community at http://eepurl.com/6YfI, to receive exclusive updates, events, and meditations. - Get a free download of Tara's 10 min meditation: "Mi...
Oct 17, 2019•21 min
Belonging to Each Other - Part 1 (2019-10-09) - Mother Teresa writes that if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. These two talks explore the causes for severed belonging, and pathways to deepening the felt sense of belonging to our own body, heart and spirit, and to all beings. Together the talks offer a natural and powerful progression of lovingkindness or metta reflections, that when practiced regularly can open us to the peace, joy and freedom of tr...
Oct 11, 2019•51 min
Meditation: Relaxed and Alert - This meditation begins with a period of relaxing and collecting our attention with intentional long deep breathing. We then deepen embodied presence, and widen to the awareness that includes sounds, sensations, feelings, breath, and all experience. When the mind drifts from this open, awake awareness, we gently return, re-relaxing and resting in an easeful, alert presence. Recorded at Tara's Wednesday night class, the meditation includes chanting of OM's and ends ...
Oct 10, 2019•22 min
Spiritual Hope: Trusting Your Awakening Heart - Our beliefs and understandings about reality directly impact our moment to moment experience of living. If we believe we will never change, that blocks the transformation that brings happiness and freedom. If we trust our spiritual unfolding and are open to possibility, that guides our attention and behaviors in ways that evolve us. This talk explores how to nurture mature, spiritual hope—hope that is sourced in trusting our intrinsic goodness, and...
Oct 04, 2019•48 min
Meditation: Relaxing into Awake Awareness - We realize our true nature by relaxing back into what is always, already here. Starting by scanning and opening through the body, we explore resting in the awareness that includes sounds, sensations and all of life. The guidance is, when we recognize thoughts, to simply relax back, and allow life to be just as it is. Join Tara's email community at http://eepurl.com/6YfI, to receive exclusive updates, events, and meditations. - Get a free download of Ta...
Oct 03, 2019•19 min
Wise Investigation: Dissolving the Trance - If we are suffering, it is because we are believing something that is not true and caught in emotional reactivity. A key tool in meditation is investigation – actively inquiring into what is happening inside us. When we investigate with sincere interest and care, the light of our attention untangles difficult emotions and nourishes intimate relationships. As this light turns toward awareness itself, it reveals the radiance and emptiness of our true nat...
Sep 27, 2019•57 min
Meditation: A Healing, Relaxing Breath - This meditation guides us in collecting attention with an intentional long deep even 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 (a favorite from the Archives).
Sep 26, 2019•24 min
True Happiness: Realizing Well-Being - Well being is the deep contentment that arises from a relaxed, wakeful presence. This talk explores the beliefs and habits that contract us away from presence, and several key ways we can nourish our natural capacity for happiness (from the archives). Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/ . With gratitude and...
Sep 20, 2019•54 min
Reflection: Pausing and Deepening Attention in the Face of Attachment - In this short reflection, we 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. Listen to the full talk, "The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Working with Attachments and Addictions," at www.tarabrach.com - July 29, 2015 . Join Tara's email community to receive exclusive updates, events, and me...
Sep 19, 2019•11 min
The Gift of Silence: Quieting the Mind - Through all spiritual traditions, there is a valuing of silence and stillness. When the mind has quieted, it becomes possible to see into the truth of what we are. Yet quieting can turn into a battle with the process of the thinking mind. This talk explores practices that allow us to settle in a natural way, the presence which is silence itself, and the wisdom and love that flows freely when we live from that silence (a favorite from the archives). Join T...
Sep 13, 2019•49 min
Meditation: Awakening the Heart – Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings - Our hearts awaken as we express and receive love in an embodied, conscious way. This guided practice brings our attention to dear ones in our life, and explores how we discover deep communion through offering and letting in love. "To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and sing it to them when they have forgotten." Arne Garborg
Sep 12, 2019•11 min
Befriending Irene - While Tara is away, this talk is from 2011 after Hurricane Irene hit us with fury. Dorian is now leaving its destruction behind, just as we work with our stormy weather within. Whether you face chronic anxiety or more violent storms of fear and anger, you can cultivate the wings of freedom–the mindfulness and compassion–that free you. This talk explores how the habit of being reactive causes us suffering and the ways these tools of meditation can be applied to the inner weath...
Sep 06, 2019•59 min
