Talks: Reflections on the Path
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...
The RAIN of Forgiveness
The capacity to release the armoring of hatred and blame is intrinsic to our evolving consciousness. This talk explores the process of authentic forgiveness, and how we can use the mindfulness-based tool of RAIN to heal and free our hearts. • More Resources on RAIN:...
Listening with an Awake Heart
True listening both nurtures and expresses evolving consciousness. This talk explores our ego-based conditioning to have an agenda or defendedness that prevents deep listening, and the strategies that evolve our capacity to listen fully to ourselves and others. When our...
Love is Always Loving You
This talk draws on Christian mystic Henri Nouwen’s book Return of the Prodigal Son. We explore the primary ways we leave home - leave presence, connection, beingness - and the pathways of deep attention and love that enable our return. The emphasis is on “letting in love” as a...
Releasing Self-Blame – Pathways to a Forgiving Heart
When we are stuck in blaming, disliking or hating ourselves, we are unable to love our world. This talk explores what underlies our addiction to self-blame and the teachings and practices that loosen aversive self-judgment and help us cultivate a forgiving heart.
Healing Self-Doubt
Healing Self-Doubt - Siddhartha Gautama’s last challenge before enlightenment was doubt, and to some degree, most of us live with limiting beliefs about our own worthiness and goodness. This talk looks at the tenacity of self-doubt and the power of mindfulness, investigation...
Embodied Awareness – Pain and Living Fully – Part 3
The experiences we most value - feeling creative, loving, vital - require being awake in our bodies. Yet when faced with physical pain, our conditioning is to pull away from our bodies, and get lost in thoughts. This talk offers guidance in working mindfully with different...
Embodied Awareness – Embracing Unlived Life – Part 2
Embodied Awareness - Embracing Unlived Life - Part 2 ~ When we disconnect from the aliveness of our body, we are in a trance that prevents us from living and loving fully. These two talks examine our habits of dissociation - including the cutting off that comes from trauma -...
Practical Dharma for Stressful Times
When we are caught in a stress reaction, we are in a trance that cuts us off from our creativity, full intelligence and capacity to be loving. This talk explores the flags of the stress-trance and three meditative strategies for shifting from fight/flight to attend/befriend. (at end is “Love the One You’re With” by Steven Stills)
Embodied Awareness – Embracing Unlived Life – Part 1
When we disconnect from the aliveness of our body, we are in a trance that prevents us from living and loving fully. These two talks examine our habits of dissociation, and the suffering of “unlived life” that this creates. We then look at how practices of mindfulness and...
Bodhichitta – The Awakened Heart – Part 2
While the brightness and warmth of our hearts is always here, like the sun when blocked by clouds, our intrinsic love can be obscured. These two talks explore how we become arrested in a confining story of separate self, and how remembering love releases us from this trance....
Bodhichitta – The Awakened Heart – Part 1
While the brightness and warmth of our hearts is always here, like the sun when blocked by clouds, our intrinsic love can be obscured. These two talks explore how we become arrested in a confining story of separate self, and how remembering love releases us from this trance....
The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening – Part 2
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” places, how...
The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening – Part 1
Part I - 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” places,...
Three Attitudes that Nourish a Liberating Practice
A key spiritual inquiry is, “In this moment, what most serves awakening?” Rather than a particular style of meditation practice, it is our way of relating to our experience - our attitude - that frees our hearts. This talk explores the attitudes that are an expression of our...
Three Blessings on the Journey (Part 2)
Drawing on a wonderful teaching story from the Upanishads, these two talks explore the role of forgiveness, inner fire and looking at our own minds, in finding freedom. NOTE: Tara is on retreat, so asked that we share these favorite talks from 2012. photo: Shell Fischer
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