Reflection: Bringing RAIN to the Wanting Mind (11:01 min.)
Most of us have spent a lifetime fixating our desires on external objects. But if we learn to really trace them back, we discover that they are the voice of loving awareness calling us home. We begin the meditation by briefly scanning through the body and sensing...
Transcript & Audio ~ Guided Meditation: The Practice of Vipassana (Mindfulness) (15:27 min.)
Download in PDF: Guided Meditation: The Practice of Vipassana (Mindfulness) The Buddhist practice for developing mindfulness is called vipassana, which means “clear insight” or “seeing clearly” in Pali, the language of the Buddha. What follows is a simple introduction...
Guided Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (27:22 min.)
This heart meditation guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a direct sense of belonging – knowing that we can never be alone (given at the Fall 2019 IMCW 7-Day Silent...
Desire and Addiction (Part 2): Voices of Longing Calling You Home
Dear Friend – As part of the collective response to the CoronaVirus—taking care of each other—Tara has cancelled her live class and recorded this from her home. Desire is intrinsic to all living forms – the urge to exist and flourish. It turns to suffering...
Meditation: The Blessings of Yes (20:12 min.)
When our hearts open to the life that is here, just as it is, we discover vast loving presence. This meditation engages the smile as we scan through and awaken to our body and senses. Then we practice meeting the changing flow of life with a full allowing, wakeful and...
Desire and Addiction (Part 1): Voices of Longing Calling You Home
Desire is intrinsic to all living forms – the urge to exist and flourish. It turns to suffering when, due to unmet needs, it contracts, intensifies and separates us from our full aliveness and awareness. These two talks guide us in awakening from this trance,...
Facing Fear (Part 2) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart
Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes...
Meditation: Relaxing with Life (21:42 min.)
This meditation begins with a body scan, and then we practice opening to and relaxing with our changing experience. The sitting closes with a beautiful poem by Danna Faulds, “Just for Now.” Just for Now,Without asking how, let yourself sink into stillness....
Working with Trauma: Tara Interviews Jim Gordon, MD
Dr. Jim Gordon is author of the new book, The Transformation: Discovering Wholeness and Healing After Trauma. In this interview with Tara, he talks about his work with populations around the globe struggling with trauma, and some of the most powerful practices that...
Meditation: Letting Life Live Through You (22:07 min.)
We begin with a body scan, open to sounds and to listening to and feeling the moment. From spacious awareness the practice is simply to recognize and allow the changing flow of life. The meditation ends with the poem, “Hokusai Says” by Roger Keyes. Hokusai says look...
Facing Fear (Part 1) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart
Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes...
Meditation: Open-Hearted Presence (23:53 min.)
This meditation establishes a kind attention by bringing the imagery and felt sense of a smile into the body scan and then, with the breath as a home base, opens the attention to changing experience. We end with a brief loving kindness reflection.
Embodied Presence (Part 2) – Planting Our Roots in the Universe – Working with Pain
In describing our human predicament and dis-ease, D.H. Lawrence says we are like a great tree with our roots in the air. We need to replant ourselves—in our bodies, hearts and spirit. These two talks are guides to replanting ourselves. In Part 1, we explore how we are...