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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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2017-12-06
Meditation: Alert Inner Stillness
20:00
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Tara Brach
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Behind the changing sounds, sensations, feelings and thoughts is an alert inner stillness that is purely aware. This meditation begins with accessing the receptivity of a smile, awakening through the body and opening the senses. We then sense the background of awareness and relax back to inhabit that wholeness. When the mind is distracted, the pathway home is a relaxing back, and the essential practice is non-doing, allowing life to be just as it is.
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2017-12-06
Awakening from the Trance of Fear – Part 2
51:01
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Tara Brach
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While fear is a natural and intelligent emotion, when fear goes on overdrive, we are in a trance of fear that contracts our body, heart and mind. Our resistance to the direct experience of fear sustains the trance and leads to decisions and behaviors that harm ourselves and others. Only by facing fear with mindfulness and compassion can we awaken from trance and reconnect with our capacity for creativity and full aliveness, wisdom and love.
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2017-12-13
Meditation: Boundless, Loving Awareness
21:05
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Tara Brach
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Learning how to recognize and rest in spaciousness, allows us to discover the love and wakefulness that is our source. This meditation guides us to discover interior space, exterior space, and then the continuous space that is suffused with awareness. We then explore how that awareness is experienced as heartspace—vast, illuminated and tender.
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2017-12-13
My Religion is Kindness – Part 1
54:23
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Tara Brach
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Authentic kindness must include the life within us. These two talks examine the movement from an armored to a free and loving heart. The first looks at how we can awaken from the trance of unworthiness and establish a genuinely caring relationship with our inner life. In the second we explore how self-kindness awakens us to the heartspace that naturally includes all of life.
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2017-12-20
My Religion is Kindness – Part 2
32:38
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Tara Brach
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Authentic kindness must include the life within us. These two talks examine the movement from an armored to a free and loving heart. The first looks at how we can awaken from the trance of unworthiness and establish a genuinely caring relationship with our inner life. In the second we explore how self-kindness awakens us to the heartspace that naturally includes all of life.
This talk is dedicated especially to youthful listeners on this solstice evening.
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2017-12-20
Meditation: “Yes” to Life
13:00
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Tara Brach
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This guided practice awakens a relaxed and friendly attention that rests in the breath and opens to whatever is arising. We deepen that presence with the intention to truly say “Yes” to experience, allowing life to be just as it is.
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2018-01-03
Three Gateways to Peace and Freedom
55:07
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Tara Brach
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This talk explores the three archetypal refuges of truth, love and awareness. We look at the outer and inner aspects of each refuge, and then through guided reflections and a Refuge Ritual, deepen our commitment to the pathways that awaken our minds and free our hearts.
NOTE: Includes a Refuge Ritual at the end of the talk – if you’d like to participate, you’ll need some red string. We use “Classic crochet thread, size 10 in red” about 36 inches per person – available at craft stores. Sing along with The Three Refuges Chant sheet (www.tarabrach.com/three-gateways-peace-freedom/)
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2018-01-03
New Year’s Meditation: Awakening Loving Presence
22:26
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Tara Brach
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Loving presence is an innate capacity, and it can be cultivated. This meditation begins with a scan arousing a relaxed tender presence in the body, then brings loving attention to our inner life, and in widening circles, to our world.
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2018-01-10
Meditation: Space and Aliveness and Awareness
21:36
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Tara Brach
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This meditation engages the breath in a way that it connects us with our energetic aliveness and the space that holds and is intrinsic to all life. A body scan using this breath opens us to the body as a field of aliveness. We then rest in the changing flow of experience, and the still presence that is our essence.
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2018-01-10
Winds of Homecoming: How Intention Frees Our Heart
50:41
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Tara Brach
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The Buddha taught that we live our lives on the tip of intention, it is the seed of our future. This talk explores the difference between “limbic” intentions driven by grasping or fear, and intentions that are the call of our awakening heart. You will learn how to identify and shift from a “limbic” to wise intention, and several different ways you can more readily and regularly access your deepest aspiration.
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