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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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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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2018-05-23
Meditation: Lighting Up Your Energy Body
19:00
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Tara Brach
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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.
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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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2018-05-30
Meditation: Aliveness and Presence
20:02
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Tara Brach
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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.
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2018-05-30
From Human Doing to Human Being – Part 1
50:21
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Tara Brach
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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.
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2018-06-27
Meditation: Opening to the Waves
20:18
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Tara Brach
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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.
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2018-06-27
Evolving Beyond “Unreal Othering”
52:19
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Tara Brach
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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.
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2018-07-04
Meditation: Blessings of Love
11:27
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Tara Brach
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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.”
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2018-07-04
Skeleton Woman: Embracing This Living and Dying World
45:58
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Tara Brach
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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
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2018-07-11
Meditation: Natural, Open Awareness
16:54
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Tara Brach
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When we are stressed, our attention narrows and fixates, often into obsessive thinking, worry and judgment. This meditation relaxes and opens the mind, first by a body scan and a “smile down,” and then by including all changing experience in a spacious awareness. As our attention shifts from mind objects like sensation and sound to the space of awareness itself, we discover the Beingness that is our formless home.
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