Love, and Death (Retreat Talk)
To live our lives fully, we need to embrace the natural unfolding of birthing and dying. Yet we are deeply conditioned to resist loss, to pull away from fear and grief. Through a powerful Inuit story, Skeleton Woman, shared by Clarissa Estes, this talk explores how...
Retreat Meditation: A Liberating Awareness – Embodying Full Presence (30 min)
This vipassana meditation establishes fertile grounds for presence by gladdening the mind, a mindful body scan, collecting the attention and including all that arises in a kind, clear presence. photo: Tara Brach
Trusting the Gold (retreat talk)
When we are unaware of the emotions and beliefs that shape our experience, we are in a trance characterized by an identity as a separate, incomplete self. Trance obscures the awareness and love that is our deepest essence. This talk explores the two key pathways of...
The Wings of Awakening – Self-Honesty & Love (retreat talk)
We evolve our consciousness by bringing a clear and kind attention to the tangles of suffering. This talk explores how the “second arrow” of self-judgment imprisons us in emotional reactivity, and the pathways of awakening awareness that reconnect us with...
Brief Guided Meditation – with no bell at end (9 min.)
Given in the early morning on the first day of retreat, this recording can settle you into a meditation of any length. There is no bell at the end, so you can make your session as long or short as you wish.
Realizing Our Undefended and Awakened Heart (retreat talk)
It is our evolutionary and spiritual potential to release unnecessary habits of violating other tribes, individuals and unwanted parts of our own being. This talk explores three essential facets of the pathway to awakening: Leaving the fortress of aversive judgment,...
Meditation Instructions – RAIN and Question-Response (14:23 min)
Tara gives morning instruction on retreat including RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nourish), then responds to questions from retreatants. Includes a question on resourcing when working with trauma. Recorded at the 2016 IMCW Women’s Retreat. • More...
On Deepening Our Meditation and a Guided Meditation from Retreat (24:48 min)
Meditation Instructions and a Guided Meditation from Retreat (2016-08-27) – Tara gives morning instructions about ways to deepen our meditation practice, then leads us in a guided meditation.
Meditation: Guided Heart Forgiveness (28:50 min)
Tara gives brief instructions on the forgiveness practice, then guides us through a process of forgiveness of ourselves and others. “Forgiving is a movement of your heart not to carry aversive hatred or blame. That you can care about someone and still create...
Fear as a Pathway to Loving Presence – Night Travelers (retreat talk)
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: The Mystery of Aliveness (from retreat) (27:40)
This meditation from the morning of spring retreat begins with a body scan, then widens to include sounds, senses and open energetic awareness. Includes an application of the RAIN of Compassion to close. (from a morning guided meditation at the IMCW 2016 Spring...
Morning Question and Response on Retreat (16:46 min)
Morning Question and Response from Retreat – Tara responds to questions on deepening our meditation practice, working with desire, and the RAIN practice (from the 2016 IMCW spring residential retreat). Free download of Tara’s 10 min meditation: “Mindful...
Conscious Prayer – Finding Refuge in Loving Awareness
Prayer is a communing with our enlarged being. This talk examines less conscious forms of prayer, and how we can evolve the power of our prayers by opening into the depth of our longing, and reaching toward our true belonging. (given at the 2016 IMCW Spring Retreat)...