Meditation: Basic Body Scan and Breath Awareness (12:18 min)
Meditation: Basic Body and Breath Scan – (2016-05-07) – from the first morning of the IMCW 2016 Spring weeklong retreat, Tara offers a short introductory meditation with a body scan, bringing focus to the breath, sounds, then resting in awareness....
Reflection: RAIN – Entering the Wilderness (10:10 min)
This short reflection, guided by the acronym RAIN, engages mindfulness and compassion as we open to life that we’ve been pushing away. By including unlived life, we reconnect with the fullness of our being, with vibrant, loving awareness. NOTE: from the end of the...
Am I Dreaming? (retreat talk)
As we cultivate mindfulness we become increasingly aware of how we move through huge swaths of our life in trance. This talk reflects on three key domains of trance, and undoing the habitual reactivity that keeps us from the loving, open awareness that is our...
Awakening from Virtual Reality (Retreat Talk)
This talk examines how we get stuck in identifying as a separate, deficient self, and the way that a deep attention frees us from trance.
Be Who You Are (retreat talk)
By bringing a surrendering presence to mental, emotional and physical domains, we undo the trance of separation and discover our true nature. This talk explores the practices that cultivate the non-resisting space of presence, and the flavors of our essential being...
Opening the Lotus of Your Heart (retreat talk)
Our reaction to life’s stress is to contract, and we live many moments with a tight body, clenched heart and narrowed mind. This talk explores how deepening attention can reconnect us with our natural openness and radiance (from the 2012 Women’s Retreat on 2/3/2012).
The Backward Step
Our habit is to think we are on our way someplace else, and that our happiness is to be found outside ourselves. Yet realization becomes possible when we take the backward step into the formless dimension of our own being. This talk explores the two pathways that...
Our True Nature – Emptiness Dancing (retreat talk)
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....