The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening – Part 2

The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening – Part 2

How can the simple act of asking a sincere question awaken us from the trance of our habitual thinking? In this talk, Tara Brach explores the transformative power of spiritual inquiry—a practice that guides us beyond our stories and into direct, embodied awareness of...
The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening – Part 1

The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening – Part 1

In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience.  These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult “stuck”...
Meditation: Inhabiting Awake Awareness (21:49)

Meditation: Inhabiting Awake Awareness (21:49)

This meditation begins with collecting attention with the breath, and awakens us to the experience of aliveness and inner space by scanning the body.  We then open to receive all the senses in awake awareness, and to inhabiting that boundless receptive awareness...
Fear as a Pathway to Loving Presence – Night Travelers

Fear as a Pathway to Loving Presence – Night Travelers

Transcript available here: Fear as a Pathway to Loving Presence – Night Travelers Shifting our relationship with fear is central to the evolution of consciousness. Our suffering arises when our thoughts, feelings and sense of identity are shaped by fear. As we...
Meditation: Know That You’re Here (19:38 min)

Meditation: Know That You’re Here (19:38 min)

We spend many moments in a trance, time traveling to the past and future, lost in a virtual reality. This meditation helps us collect our attention with our breath, awaken through the body, and open the senses. We then rest in the wakeful openness that includes...
The Bodhisattva Path—Nurturing the River of Caring

The Bodhisattva Path—Nurturing the River of Caring

As humans face the darkness of fear, violence, and division, something else is also stirring: an awakening field of courage, care, and connection. This talk explores the primitive survival strategies that keep us in trance and the evolutionary currents of awakening...
Letting Go of Controlling: The Path of Freedom – Part 1

Letting Go of Controlling: The Path of Freedom – Part 1

While it’s natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence.  This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to...
Meditation: Relaxed and Alert (20:42 min.)

Meditation: Relaxed and Alert (20:42 min.)

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...
Meditation: Befriending Your Inner Life (18:32 min.)

Meditation: Befriending Your Inner Life (18:32 min.)

This meditation establishes a gentle and caring presence through bringing the image and felt sense of a smile to various domains in the body. We then settle with the breath, and practice relaxing with whatever arises, letting life be just as it is. The underlying...
3 Degrees Friendlier: Small Shifts That Transform Everything

3 Degrees Friendlier: Small Shifts That Transform Everything

What might change if you were three degrees friendlier than you are now? Not more accommodating or self-sacrificing, but authentically friendlier—to your inner life, with others, and in how you meet the world. In this talk, I explore what friendliness actually is, why...
How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 2

How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 2

What if hope is not something we cling to—but a capacity we can cultivate? In this talk, we’ll explore how hope becomes a healing and liberating force when it is rooted in awareness, trust, and compassionate action. The mature expression of hope includes three...
Meditation: Receiving Life in Open, Awake Awareness (20:33 min.)

Meditation: Receiving Life in Open, Awake Awareness (20:33 min.)

This meditation awakens a receptive attention to the senses, starting with physical sensations and opening to sound. Then we sense how open awake awareness is receiving the moment to moment arising and passing life. In the final part of the practice, we explore how...
How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 1

How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 1

How does hope support healing, inner freedom, and our capacity to serve a hurting world? In this talk, we’ll explore the mature expression of hope—not as wishful thinking, but as a living force on the spiritual path. True hope includes three essential elements:...
Meditation: Awakening Our Full Aliveness (21:30 min.)

Meditation: Awakening Our Full Aliveness (21:30 min.)

We cut off from our aliveness when we are lost in thoughts and on auto pilot. This meditation arouses a receptivity to sensation from “the inside out,” opens the awareness to sound, and then invites a full resting in receptive, dynamic presence (from the archives). It...