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Tara Brach's Dharma Talks at Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
Tara Brach
A pervasive but often invisible source of suffering in our culture is self-aversion. We are a busy culture, and we move through our life feeling anxious and dissatisfied, but not fully conscious of how we neglect or judge our inner experience. We suffer from a lack of belonging: to our own bodies, to each other and to the earth. When we practice Buddhist meditation, we learn how to listen deeply and hold our life tenderly.
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2018-07-04 Skeleton Woman: Embracing This Living and Dying World 45:58
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Based on a wonderful myth told by Clarissa Estes, this talk looks at the way we run from “lady death” and the blessings of opening our arms and heart. If we can embrace the whole of our nature with unconditional presence – including the inevitability of change and loss–we discover deep wisdom and enduring love. (a favorite from the archives) May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing it and no holding back, the way it is with children. Then in these swelling and ebbing currents, these deepening tides moving out, returning, I will sing you as no one ever has, streaming through widening channels into the open sea. — from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, by Rainer Maria Rilke
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-07-04 Meditation: Blessings of Love 11:27
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A blessing is whatever reminds us of the sacred loving presence that shines through all of us. This meditation is a transformational practice in receiving and offering blessings. First we connect with the vulnerable tender place within us that longs to feel loved, and call on loving presence to bless us. By imagining and allowing ourselves to receive love, our hearts become open and filled with light. We then bring that inner loving presence fully alive as we offer blessings to other beings. The image of receiving a kiss on the brow, and offering one, is suggested as a powerful channel for the blessings that awaken our heart. “…being loved into being more who we are is a moment of blessing. What is a blessing? A blessing is a reminder or homecoming into more realness – more love. We’re blessed when we remember.” “Part of what keeps us from realness – in that small self identity – is the avoiding of what’s here.”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-06-27 Meditation: Opening to the Waves 20:18
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When we are lost in thought, we lose touch with the aliveness and awareness that is always here. This meditation guides us with a mindful body scan to open to our senses, then to sound and all waves of aliveness. From that open presence we end with a loving kindness prayer.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-06-27 Evolving Beyond “Unreal Othering” 52:19
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What motivates us – as individuals and as a society – to build walls and knowingly hurt others? This talk explores the evolutionary roots of “unreal othering” and how when we are hijacked by fear, it can take over and disconnect us from the very real suffering of others. We then look at how meditative strategies awaken us from othering, and reveal our intrinsic belonging. Finally, we apply this to our own lives in a reflection that helps us respond to someone we have turned into “unreal other” with compassion and wisdom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-05-30 Meditation: Aliveness and Presence 20:02
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This meditation includes a body scan, using the imagery of a smile, and establishing the senses as a portal to presence. The more we open into the aliveness of the senses, the more we discover the alert inner stillness that is our true home.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-05-30 From Human Doing to Human Being – Part 1 50:21
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Like Sisyphus eternally pushing the boulder up the hill, we can spend many moments busily trying to manage our life. This two-part talk explores how we can awaken from our non-stop doing, including the incessant inner narrative, and discover the mystery, love and freedom that arises in Being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-05-23 Meditation: Lighting Up Your Energy Body 19:00
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Our being has many frequencies of aliveness and as we attend to the more subtle, we discover a portal to the radiant awareness that is always here. This meditation guides us in using the breath and attention as we scan through the body and awaken an inner luminosity. We then open the attention to rest in the whole field of awake awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-05-23 Seeing Basic Goodness – Part 2 54:13
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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”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-05-16 Meditation – Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life 21:21
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This meditation invites us to collect our attention with a calming breath, and then with the senses as a home base, settle into presence. The reminders encourage a letting go of thoughts, shifting from virtual reality into the aliveness of moment-to-moment experience. In that letting go into life we find the stillness, wakefulness and openness of our true nature.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-05-16 Seeing Basic Goodness – Part 1 52:37
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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
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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