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Dharma Talks
given at Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2018-05-23
Seeing Basic Goodness – Part 2
54:13
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Tara Brach
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Most of us long to trust our goodness, but get caught in stories of deficiency and striving to affirm we’re ok. These talks look at the block to realizing the loving awareness that is our essence, and the practices that help us see this essential goodness – in ourselves, dear ones and in those we might habitually consider different or “other.” Both talks include reflections that can help us appreciate the basic goodness that lives through these precious, changing forms.
"Think of some of the people you like and are drawn to you.
Now attempt to look at each of them as if you were seeing them for the first time, not allowing yourself to be influenced by your past knowledge or experience of them, whether good or bad.
Look for things in them that you may have missed because of familiarity, for familiarity breeds staleness, blindness and boredom. You cannot love what you cannot see afresh. You cannot love what you are not constantly discovering anew."
Anthony de Mello
from “The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello”
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-05-16
Seeing Basic Goodness – Part 1
52:37
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Tara Brach
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Most of us long to trust our goodness, but get caught in stories of deficiency and striving to affirm we’re ok. These talks look at the block to realizing the loving awareness that is our essence, and the practices that help us see this essential goodness – in ourselves, dear ones and in those we might habitually consider different or “other.” Both talks include reflections that can help us appreciate the basic goodness that lives through these precious, changing forms.
“Saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everyone else.” -Thomas Merton
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-05-09
Eating Addiction: How Meditation Helps Free Us
54:01
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Tara Brach
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Buddhist psychology views clinging as the source of suffering, and one of the great domains of clinging is compulsive overeating. For most of us the causes and conditions for compulsive overeating existed before we were born, during our early childhood, and in our surrounding society. We begin to release shame and self-aversion by realizing we are not alone in this suffering; and eating addiction is not “our fault.” The talk includes an exploration of how, through RAIN, we can bring mindfulness and self-compassion to compulsive eating, giving us more choice in our behavior. Ultimately we discover that this deep prison of suffering can become a portal to realizing the freedom our true nature.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-05-03
Meditation: The Silence That’s Listening
27:15
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Tara Brach
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Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. In this guided meditation, we begin by opening to sound and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life – allowing whatever is here to be just as it is. In the foreground, we notice the dance of sensations, thoughts, emotions…rising up and falling away. And in the background, a wakeful, receptive presence – the silence that is listening. When we let go of all doing and relax back into this alert stillness, we sense our true nature…our home.
In words from the Tibetan tradition: “Utterly awake, senses wide open. Utterly open, non-fixating, allowing awareness.”
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
:
2018 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
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