2012-11-28 - Guided Meditation - A Forgiving Heart - Forgiveness is the letting go of armor we have erected around our heart. While forgiving is a life-long process, it can be engaged and deepened by practices such as the one offered here. The best attitude in approaching this meditation is one of gentleness and clear intention. Reflect on what matters to you, and then let go of any judgments or expectations as to how the meditation "should" unfold. Blessings! Please support this podcast by dona...
Nov 28, 2012•29 min
2012-11-21 - Gratitude and Generosity - Markings of Inner Freedom - Those who are genuinely happy, are also naturally grateful for life and generous in living. This Thanksgiving Eve talk explores key ways we block the arising of gratitude and generosity, and practices of mindful presence and direct cultivation that awaken these expressions of the liberated heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the ...
Nov 21, 2012•1 hr 1 min
2012-11-14 - Hands Off the Controls - We are deeply conditioned to respond to impermanence and inevitable loss by trying to control our experience. Our egoic reactivity prevents us from responding wisely to our life, and living the moments fully. This talk looks at how we can let go of controlling, open to the groundlessness we run from, and reconnect with the deep intelligence and love that flows through our being. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Yo...
Nov 14, 2012•56 min
2012-11-07 - Practical Dharma for Stressful Times - When we are caught in a stress reaction, we are in a trance that cuts us off from our creativity, full intelligence and capacity to be loving. This talk explores the flags of the stress-trance and three meditative strategies for shifting from fight/flight to attend/befriend. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Nov 07, 2012•59 min
2012-10-27 - Loving the Life Within Us (retreat talk) - If we don't love the life we consider "self," we will not realize or live from the loving awareness that is our essence. This talk guides us in bringing a kind, accepting presence to our inner life, and discovering the vastness of what we really are. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Oct 27, 2012•1 hr 7 min
2012-10-24 - 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 is turned toward awareness itself, it reveals the radiance and emptiness...
Oct 24, 2012•57 min
2012-10-17 - Question and Response with Tara - Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Oct 17, 2012•54 min
2012-10-10 - Part 2 - Wise Intention--Living in Truth - Evolution has conditioned us to identify as an egoic self and to protect that identity. A key strategy is trying to control how others perceive us through pretense and deception. This talk explores the ways we disarm though dedicating ourselves to truthfulness, forgiving our defenses and taking a chance to name and make room for the vulnerability we have been armoring. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw...
Oct 10, 2012•54 min
2012-10-03 - Part 1 - Wise Intention--the Compass of our Hearts - One of the most powerful spiritual practices in the world is to reflect on your hearts deepest intention. These two talks look at the way that ego-based intentions perpetuate thoughts, feelings and actions that keep us imprisoned in feeling separate and limited. In contrast, remembering our deeper intentions call us home to the freedom of our true nature. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org...
Oct 03, 2012•45 min
2012-09-26 - Part 2 - Embodied Spirit - Our body--this changing field of sensation--is a portal into pure Being. These talks explore the resistance we have to embodied presence, the pathways that enable us to awaken through our bodies, and the blessings of realization that arise as we let go over and over into the aliveness of our senses. Part 2 specifically addresses the challenge of arriving in embodied presence when we are facing traumatic fear, and other intense and difficult emotions. Pleas...
Sep 26, 2012•55 min
2012-09-19 - Part 1 - Embodied Spirit - Our body--this changing field of sensation--is a portal into pure Being. These talks explore the resistance we have to embodied presence, the pathways that enable us to awaken through our bodies, and the blessings of realization that arise as we let go over and over into the aliveness of our senses. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Sep 19, 2012•52 min
2012-09-12 - The Freedom of Yes - How do we accept ourselves or others when our actions are causing harm? Does acceptance mean passivity? Does it undermine our efforts towards change? This talk responds to these questions with a simple, illuminating and challenging principle about genuine transformation: Acceptance is the prerequisite of true healing and awakening. Only when we've paused to recognize and allow this moment's experience to be fully as it is, can we respond from our intelligence an...
Sep 12, 2012•1 hr
2012-09-05 - Trance of the Unreal Other - We are conditioned to perceive people as unreal others- two dimensional characters who lack sentience, vulnerability and goodness. This is often most insidious when we filter people through demeaning culturally driven stereotypes. This talk explores the suffering of living in a trance that separates us from others, and how our practices of mindfulness and compassion enable us to experience what Thoreau calls the "miracle" of seeing through another's eyes...
Sep 05, 2012•1 hr
2012-08-29 - Intimacy with Our Inner Life - Jung wrote that our suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche. This talk explores ways we can establish a healing presence by recognizing and communicating with the parts of our being that we habitually ignore or judge. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Aug 29, 2012•1 hr
2012-08-22 - Part 2 - 1000 Serious Moves - We easily habituate to feeling stressed, leaning forward, trying to figure things out and get things done. The undercurrent is we are living reactively--resisting unpleasant experience, seeking out more comfort and ease-- perpetually wanting life to be different than it is. In response to this confined way of living, the Buddha invites us to discover our innate capacity for happiness, the wellbeing that arises in full presence. These two talks explore t...
Aug 22, 2012•58 min
2012-08-15 - 1000 Serious Moves - We easily habituate to feeling stressed, leaning forward, trying to figure things out and get things done. The undercurrent is we are living reactively--resisting unpleasant experience, seeking out more comfort and ease-- perpetually wanting life to be different than it is. In response to this confined way of living, the Buddha invites us to discover our innate capacity for happiness, the wellbeing that arises in full presence. These two talks explore the ways w...
Aug 15, 2012•58 min
2012-08-08 - Real but not True - One of the most liberating realizations is that we don't have to believe our thoughts. In this talk we look at the suffering caused by limiting beliefs--"I am unworthy, unloveable, unsafe"--and the process by which we open into the full aliveness and potential of our being. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Aug 08, 2012•54 min
2012-08-01 - Back to the Garden - The suffering of perceiving ourselves as separate selves expresses as fear, aggression, shame and a host of other afflictive emotions. This talk examines how, by taking refuge in the present moment, and taking refuge in love, we reconnect with our wholeness, and the timeless presence that is home. This inquiry includes a guided meditation on the power of prayer to carry us back to our natural belonging. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.co...
Aug 01, 2012•59 min
2012-07-25 - Listening with an Awake Heart - Listening to our inner life and each other is the grounds of healing, intimacy and love. This talk explores the challenges to offering a listening presence, and the qualities of open receptivity and interest that nourish true communicating. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations allow us to continue to freely offer the teachings!
Jul 25, 2012•57 min
(retreat talk) 2011-10-12 - Our True Nature--Emptiness Dancing - The most profound question in spiritual life is "who (or what) am I?" This talk explores ways of inquiring into the nature of awareness, and the blessings of embodying the realization of our radiant, empty essence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jul 18, 2012•1 hr 4 min
2012-04-28 - Introduction to the Heart Practices - These instructions on the heart practices were given at the IMCW 2012 Spring Retreat. A guided lovingkindness or "metta" meditation to open the heart and come home to presence follows. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jul 11, 2012•40 min
2012-07-04 - Part 2 - Freedom: Taking the Backward Step - This talk investigates the core conditioning that creates and sustains trance. We then explore two gateways to realizing and inhabiting our true nature - inquiry and letting go. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jul 04, 2012•58 min
2012-6-27 - Part 1 - Freedom: Seeing Who is Looking Through the Mask - We suffer when we are identified with our egoic conditioning and unable to recognize the spirit - the love and awareness - that animates our own and all beings. In this talk we explore how recognizing our vulnerability and basic goodness helps us to see through the mask and realize who is here. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jun 27, 2012•55 min
2012-06-20 - Cultivating Equanimity (Duck Meditation) - Equinimity, the mindful presence that neither grasps nor resists experience, is the grounds for unconditional love and wise action. This talk explores the conditioning that entraps us in reactivity, and two primary pathways for coming home to this natural state of balance and presence. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jun 20, 2012•58 min
2012-06-13 - Committing to Joy - What makes joy rare? How do we awaken this beautiful capacity to embrace life? In this talk we explore the obstacles to joy and the attitude and practices that free us to "love what is." Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jun 13, 2012•54 min
2012-06-06 - Cultivating Compassion - We each have the potential to live with a compassionate, open heart. In this talk we explore the conditioning that closes us off to authentic caring, and the ways of deepening our attention that help us live to include widening circles of beings in our heart. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
Jun 06, 2012•52 min
2012-05-30 - Intimacy with Life - Awakening Love - The Buddha taught about four Divine Abodes--dwelling places of the awakened heart mind: lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. In this four-part series, we will explore the ways our conditioning blocks us from these expressions of inner freedom, and the understandings and practices that enable us to inhabit our full potential. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
May 30, 2012•54 min
2012-05-23 - Training for Intimacy with Life - "Enlightenment is intimacy with all things" teaches Zen Master Dogen. While we long for this intimacy, we are conditioned to avoid the vulnerability and fear that an intimate presence can arouse. This talk explores how our mindfulness and heart practices cultivate the capacity to be intimate with our sensations of aliveness, our emotions and the beings in our life. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your do...
May 23, 2012•59 min
2012-05-16 - Part 2: The Lion's Roar - The Buddha taught that faith--trust in our true nature--is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant and full. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
May 16, 2012•51 min
2012-05-09 - Part 1: The Lion's Roar - The Buddha taught that faith--trust in our true nature--is intrinsic to the spiritual path and the expression of wisdom. These two talks investigate the practices of presence that awaken our faith and the freedom that arises when our faith becomes radiant and full. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donations make a difference!
May 09, 2012•54 min
