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Retreat Dharma Talks
at Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2014-03-12
Part 5: Equanimity - A Heart That is Ready for Anything
1:18:25
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Tara Brach
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Equanimity is the quality of presence that is open, balanced and non-reactive. As this talk explores, when equanimity is lacking, we become easily lost in trance, identified as a defended and controlling egoic self. When present, the solidity and constriction of egoic self dissolves, and our heart is free to respond to life with love, compassion, forgiveness and joy.
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2014-03-19
Return of the Prodigal Son
1:21:47
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Tara Brach
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Drawing on Henri Nouwen’s book that interprets this famous parable, this talk looks at the ways we cut off from loving awareness, and the process of homecoming. Our inquiry, reflections and a guided meditation focus on an essential and often overlooked element of transformation: our capacity to trust in love, to let love in.
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2014-03-26
Planting Ourselves in the Universe
1:15:51
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Tara Brach
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When we are lost in the trance of thinking, we disconnect from the aliveness, awareness and love that is our source. Mindfulness, a key capacity of our evolving consciousness, awakens us from an identification with thinking and enables us to inhabit a wider realm of Being. This talk explores the confines of conceptual mind and the simple yet powerful practices that cultivate mindful awareness.
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2014-04-02
Stress and Our Evolving Consciousness
1:20:04
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Tara Brach
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The universal experience of stress (in Buddhism, called dukkha) is a message that we are not realizing, trusting and living from our true nature. Our habitual reactions to stress - grasping, aversion, resistance - deepen emotional pain and lock us in a limiting sense of egoic-self. This talk explores how, with conscious intention and deepened attention, the stressful difficulties we encounter can become the very grounds of healing and spiritual awakening.
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2014-04-09
Loving and Losing
1:21:00
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Tara Brach
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The way that we relate to impermanence and loss shapes our capacity to live and love fully. This talk, drawing on Mary Oliver’s poem “In Blackwater Woods,” explores three elements in our response to this fleeting, precious life that are integral to our healing and freedom.
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2014-04-16
RAIN - Cultivating a Mindful Awareness
1:22:24
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Tara Brach
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The acronym RAIN is a powerful tool for interrupting habitual patterns of emotional reactivity and discovering the freedom of an awake, compassionate presence. This talk explores the components of RAIN, how it works, what makes it transformational and typical challenges people encounter. The teachings include a guided RAIN meditation.
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2014-04-23
Awakening Through Conflict
1:22:33
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Tara Brach
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As long as we are identified as separate selves, we will inevitably experience conflict with others. If we learn to release blame and deepen attention to our embodied experience, conflict can become a portal for more loving, alive relationships and awakening into the fullness of our being.
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2014-04-30
Part 2 - Conflict - From Fight Flight Freeze to Attend Befriend
1:17:26
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Tara Brach
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How do we reconcile conflict when caught in reactivity sourced in trauma or deep wounding? This talk looks at the need for a larger field of belonging - a trusted other person or safe group - to engender the presence and compassion that enables us to relax and reconnect with our own wholeness and with others.
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2014-05-14
Question and Response
1:17:24
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Tara Brach
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Tara explores a range of questions that include working with unworthiness, recognizing aspiration, stepping out of the story and understanding the selfless quality of experience.
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2014-05-21
Heart Training on the Bodhisatva Path
56:38
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Tara Brach
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Bodhisattva means “Awakened Being.” This path of awakening has three key domains for practice: remembering intention; training our attention; and compassionate activity. This talk reviews these domains and includes guided reflections that can help bring spirituality alive in daily life.
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