Talks: Reflections on the Path
Trusting Our Hearts – Trust in Our Basic Goodness
Trust in our basic goodness directly effects our capacity for intimacy with others, creativity and living fully. This talk explores the ways that our caregivers and culture undermine that trust, primarily by giving us messages that we are “not enough” or flawed. We...
Letting Go – The Freedom of Awake Awareness
We know we need to let go of harmful habits like obsessive worry, blame and over consuming to experience true well-being, yet much of the time we are stuck and judge ourselves for being out of control. This talk explores what's so difficult about letting go and how we can't...
Your Future Self: Turning Towards Your Awakened HeartMind
Our lives are shaped by our evolutionary past - the fears and wants that arise from a separate self sense - and the pull of our evolutionary potential - our awakened heart and mind. This talk explores the power of these pulls, and the teachings and reflections that make us most...
How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 2
The mature expression of hope includes three elements: the aspiration for manifesting our full potential, a trust that this is possible, and an energy that engages to serve this unfolding. In this talk, we explore the importance of hope on the spiritual path, its shadow side,...
How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 1
The mature expression of hope includes three elements: the aspiration for manifesting our full potential, a trust that this is possible, and an energy that engages to serve this unfolding. In this talk, we explore the importance of hope on the spiritual path, its shadow side,...
Wise Investigation: Dissolving the Trance
If we are suffering, it is because we are believing something that is not true and caught in emotional reactivity. A key tool in meditation is investigation – actively inquiring into what is happening inside us. When we investigate with sincere interest and care, the light of...
Loving the Life Within Us (Retreat Talk)
If we don’t love the life we consider “self,” we will not realize or live from the loving awareness that is our essence. This talk guides us in bringing a kind, accepting presence to our inner life, and discovering the vastness of what we really are. photo: Shell Fischer
That Bird Got My Wings – Mindfulness & Heartfulness
This talk looks at how we are imprisoned by a limited sense of who we are. It describes how the wings of mindfulness and heartfulness enable us to realize the spirit that is our essence. We then look at how we can bring the wings of freedom to our engagement with others. The...
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 learn to attend...
Stress and Everyday Nirvana – Part 2
Our habitual view of stress is that it is a bad thing, an obstacle to healthy living and spiritual realization. These two talks look at how our way of relating to stress determines our happiness, and invites listeners to engage with practices that radically shift our response...
Stress and Everyday Nirvana – Part 1
Our habitual view of stress is that it is a bad thing, an obstacle to healthy living and spiritual realization. These two talks look at how our way of relating to stress determines our happiness, and invites listeners to engage with practices that radically shift our response...
Reconnecting with Our Lives – Healing from Dissociation
Dissociation is the universal mechanism for pulling away from the pain of “too much.” While it’s necessary and natural for enduring certain situations, the ongoing habit of dissociation cuts us off from our full aliveness, creativity, and capacity for love. This talk explores...
Remembering What Matters: Aspiration and Intention
Remembering What Matters - Aspiration and Intention (from 2013-01-30) ~ Our conscious aspiration toward awakening is what energizes the spiritual path. This talk reviews the main characteristic of a vital aspiration, the conditioning that obscures our deepest intentions and...
Three Gestures of Love
If we inquire “what is between me and presence” we usually find we’ve been caught inside a limiting story of self, contracted by wants and fears. This talk explores a simple yet powerful way of arousing loving presence and dissolving the narrow identification that keeps us from...
Real But Not True: Freeing Ourselves from Harmful Beliefs
Thoughts and beliefs are navigational maps that are not inherently true. Rather, some serve us and others cause feelings of separation, self-aversion and/or blame of others. We can free ourselves from harmful beliefs by investigating them with a dedicated, mindful and...
Happy for No Reason – Part 2: Opening to Happiness
These two talks explore the two different kinds of happiness, the blocks to happiness, and the ways that mindful presence and intentional gladdening the heart (positive neuroplasticity) can open us to our full potential for true happiness. photo: Jonathan Foust ~ "Happy for No...
Happy for No Reason – Part 1 : Opening to Happiness
These two talks explore the two different kinds of happiness, the blocks to happiness, and the ways that mindful presence and intentional gladdening the heart (positive neuroplasticity) can open us to our full potential for true happiness.
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 Breathing: Finding Calm...
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) photo:...
Question and Response from Retreat (12:10 min)
Question and Response from Retreat ~ After morning meditation, Tara responds to questions on deepening our meditation practice, working with unpleasant and pleasant thoughts, and forgiveness from the IMCW 2016 Spring Residential Retreat. photo: Susan Whitcomb - pink lady...
Donations
Please consider a donation of any size—your generosity allows us to offer these talks and meditations freely.