Part 1 - Being Embodied: Gateway to Aliveness and Spirit - All that we cherish—creativity, love, wisdom, realization—arises from an embodied presence. Yet as we know, the wounds and trauma of our society and individual lives leads toward dissociation. These two talks look at the challenges to awakening through our bodies, and the practices and teachings that guide us on the path.
Meditation: Embodied Spirit - Experiencing our aliveness through our senses is the gateway to resting in formless loving presence. This meditation guides us to awakening through our body, and recognizing the backdrop of silence, of awake awareness, that is the source of all being.
John O’Donahue writes, “We are so busy managing our lives, we forget this great mystery we are involved in.” This talk looks at the ways we pull away from the mystery and the path of “beginner’s mind” that enables us to encounter this living world with freshness, courage and wonder (Tara chose this talk to share from the archives).
Meditation: Yes to Life (2021-05-19) - In the moments we release all resistance, we relax open to inhabit the fullness of our Being. This meditation guides us to an embodied, openhearted presence that welcomes the changing flow of life.
Bridging the Divide: Learning to Tend and Befriend - One of the great sufferings facing us is the growing divide between humans with different views, different realities. This talk looks at several levels of divides—being at war with ourselves, creating separation in our personal relationships, and societal divides. We then reflect on how we can evolve consciousness from the trance of “Fight, Flight, Freeze” to the wholeness that arises with “Tend and Befriend.”
Meditation: Being Here for Life (2021-05-08) - It’s easy to race through our seasons and miss the mystery and preciousness of unfolding moments. This meditation invites us into an embodied, openhearted presence and includes a poem by Pat Schneider called “Instructions for the Journey."
Three Dimensions of Conscious Prayer - Prayer can be a creative, vibrant and infinitely tender part of our spiritual awakening. This talk explores the dimensions of embodied presence, sincere expression and silence that bring transformational power to our prayers.
Meditation: Letting Go into Living Presence (2021-05-05) - We resist reality by tensing our body and contracting into thoughts. This meditation guides us into letting go of resistance by surrendering over and over into the aliveness and presence that is right here.
Méditation: Rencontrer la colère avec conscience - (de-TaraBrach-traduite-par-Dominique-Fugère) - Lorsque notre colère est contenue avec conscience, elle peut être une force, une énergie, pour répondre avec sagesse aux situations difficiles de la vie. Cette méditation nous guide pour aller à la rencontre de la colère personnelle et\ou sociale qui nous habite, avec l’aide de RAIN, l’acronyme du Reconnaître, Autoriser, Investiguer et Nourrir. Cette méditation est de Tara Brach. Elle est traduit...
Namaste: Honoring the Light in All Beings - The ritual of Namaste - bowing to the sacred in ourselves and others - helps us live from the loving awareness that is our true nature. This talk looks at how we suffer because we forget this basic goodness, and explores the pathways of remembering that carry us home.
Meditation: From Head to Full Being (2021-04-28) - When we are lost inside thoughts we lose connection with our heart, aliveness and spirit. This meditation guides us to a wakeful presence and invites us to return over and over from virtual reality into the mysterious, tender vastness that is our true being.
Belonging to the Earth (2021-04-21) - As a species, forgetting our belonging to our larger body of Earth is causing suffering for this entire living web. In this talk we look at what causes and sustains this trance of forgetting. We then explore the ways we each can awaken a sense of loving connectedness and active caring toward our natural world.
Meditation: Opening to Full Aliveness (2021-04-21) - Our tension is a way of defending against the aliveness that is here and now. This meditation guides us in relaxing tension, awakening our senses and discovering the vitality and presence that express our natural being.
“Make Love of Your Self Perfect” - retreat talk (2021-04-14) - Like a dense fog, chronic self -judgment blocks the light of our true nature. This talk explores the challenges to loving the life within us, and the pathways of practice that lead to holding our own being and all life in a boundless tender heart (a talk from the IMCW Spring 2021 online weeklong silent retreat).
Meditation: Coming Home with the Breath (2021-04-14) - This guided practice has a short period of relaxing the body, and establishes the breath as a home base for attention. We practice arriving again and again, deepening the pathway of homecoming. The meditation ends with lovingkindness for ourselves and our world.
Radical Self-Honesty: The Joy of Getting Real - Our suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt, resisted parts of our psyche. This talk explores ways we can deepen self-honesty and reconnect to a wholeness of being that enables us to live with spontaneity, confidence, wisdom and love (a favorite from the archives). A quote by Elizabeth Lessor from the talk: “My prayer to god every day: Remove the veils so I might see what is really happening here and not be intoxicated by my stories and my fears.”...
Meditation: Relaxing into Living Presence (2021-04-07) - This meditation guides us to awaken to sensation using the image of a smile and scanning through the body. We then open to sound and to the entire changing flow of experience. When we connect with the changing flow of sensations, feelings and sounds, we also discover the formless awareness that is our Source… and home. We end with a prayer that includes our own being and all beings.
Part 2 - Fear of Aging: Finding Freedom in this Impermanent World (2021-03-31) - While it’s natural to have fears of what’s ahead, when we learn to face the inevitability of change and loss without resistance, we discover true peace and freedom in the midst. In a very direct way, our awareness of impermanence awakens unconditional loving. These two talks explore the ways we habitually deny or resist reality, and the three interrelated pathways—refuge in the present moment, love and awareness—tha...
Meditation: Relaxing Back into Presence (2021-03-31) - When we are stressed, our body and mind contract, and energetically we resist the life in the present moment. This meditation helps de-condition the stress reaction by guiding us to relax open from thoughts, relax physical tension, and gently relax back over and over into living presence.
Transforming Two Fears - FOF and FOMO (2021-03-24) - There are two common fears that can block us from our full potential - fear of failure (FOF), and fear of missing out (FOMO). This talk explores how to meet these fears with mindful presence, and discover within them the essence energies of loving awareness and full aliveness.
Meditation: Embodying Loving Awareness (2021-03-24) - Love is often abstract, and not fully alive. In this practice, with the supportive image and felt sense of a smile, we are guided to awaken loving in our body, mind and whole being.
Fear of Aging - Finding Freedom in this Impermanent World – Part 1 (2021-03-17) - While it’s natural to have fears of what’s ahead, when we learn to face the inevitability of change and loss without resistance, we discover true peace and freedom in the midst. In a very direct way, our awareness of impermanence awakens unconditional loving. These two talks explore the ways we habitually deny or resist reality, and the three interrelated pathways—refuge in the present moment, love and awareness—th...
Meditation: A Kind and Allowing Presence (2021-03-17) - When we’re stressed our hearts tighten and we try to control our life. This meditation guides us to relax the controlling and discover the open, tender awareness that allows life to be as it is.
The Power of Deep Listening - Part 2 (2012-03-10) - Listening deeply is the gateway to realizing connection. It’s what allows us to move through life with a wise, loving and healing presence. These two talks explore our blocks to true listening, and offer teachings and practices that can directly cultivate this invaluable capacity.
Meditation: Cultivating Deep Listening (2021-03-10) - Deep listening expresses the purity and presence of our true nature. This meditation guides us to come into a state of listening that is spacious, receptive and profoundly wakeful and present. We close with the poem “lost” by David Wagoner.
The Power of Deep Listening - Part 1 (2021-03-03) - Listening deeply is the gateway to realizing connection. It’s what allows us to move through life with a wise, loving and healing presence. These two talks explore our blocks to true listening, and offer teachings and practices that can directly cultivate this invaluable capacity.
Meditation: Aliveness and Presence (2021-03-03) - This meditation guides us to wake up our senses and full aliveness through a body scan, and then to rest in the formless presence that is aware of this changing dance of life. We close with a poem by Robert Hall.
Namaste: Seeing the Truth of Who We Are (2021-02-24) - A gift of evolving consciousness is the capacity to recognize and honor the sacred awareness that lives through our own and all beings. This capacity is blocked by our identification with our “mask” or ego self, and not seeing past other people’s masks. In this talk we reflect together on some key filters of superior/inferior and good/bad that shape the trance of a narrowed identity, and then explore how mindfulness and kindness free us to i...
Meditation: Continuous Space Suffused with Awareness (2021-02-24) - By learning to inhabit the body, we discover the space and aliveness that fills the universe. In this meditation we are guided through the body, filling different domains with presence. We then open into the continuous awake space that is both within and surrounds the body. When we notice the mind drifts, we relax back to be that awake space, aware of the changing flow of sensations, thoughts, feelings and sounds.
Awakening Our Body’s Awareness – Part 2 (2021-02-17) - Mindful awareness of our bodies is a portal to full aliveness, wisdom and love. These two classes will explore the trance that takes us away from our body, the pathways home, ways of working with pain, and the gifts of an embodied presence.
