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Dharma Talks
given at Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2020-09-16
The Four Remembrances
50:42
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Tara Brach
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| When we attune to the reality of impermanence and death, we remember what most matters to us. But in daily life we can lose precious swaths of time in a reactive trance, on our way somewhere else, and lost in problem solving, judgment and worry.
This talk reflects on four remembrances or practices—Pausing, Yes to life, Turning toward love, and Resting in awareness—that help us awaken from trance and live true to the loving presence that is our essence. |
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2020-09-09
Meditation: Meeting Life with a Spacious Heart
22:00
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Tara Brach
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| Especially when we’re stressed, we need pathways to an allowing, kind presence. This meditation guides us to relax and open through our bodies, and then meet changing waves of experience with a sea of awareness that is intrinsically allowing and tender. |
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2020-09-09
Awakening from the Trance of Bad-Othering
46:31
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Tara Brach
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| Great spiritual leaders of social movements teach that true transformation arises from realizing our interconnectedness, and the light of the divine in each being. Sadly, through human history, much suffering has come from perceiving others as bad-others, flawed humans who are excluded from our heart.
This talk looks at how our stories and mistrust of others—in personal relationships and in our society—can lead to cycles of violence, harm, and deepening alienation. We then explore the inner process that helps us shift to “bad behavior, not bad human” and allows us to respond to suffering with love-in-action. |
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2020-09-02
Meditation: Relaxing Back into Awareness
21:28
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Tara Brach
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| When we are in our daily trance, we are often leaning forward, on our way somewhere else. In this meditation we are guided to relax back into the awareness that is always, already here. We explore relaxing back through a body scan, and then with all our senses wide open. With practice we increasingly find our pathway home by relaxing the clench of doings, and resting in what is. |
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2020-09-02
Transforming Your Relationship with Anxiety
1:19:29
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Tara Brach
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| Strong anxiety frequently triggers fight-flight-freeze, our survival brain’s strategy for dealing with threats. This can become a trance that dominates our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and deepest experience of who we are. This talk explores how we get caught in this reactive trance, and ways of calming anxiety and radically shifting our way of relating to the experience of threat. The gift is discovering an inner freedom in the midst of life, and the capacity to respond to what arises with love-in-action. |
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2020-08-26
Meditation: Resting in Awake Awareness
18:49
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Tara Brach
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| This practice opens with a body scan, employing the image and felt sense of a smile to awaken awareness through the body. We then open to all the senses, and rest in the awareness that includes this changing life. |
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2020-08-26
Worrier Pose: Finding Freedom from the Body of Fear
59:27
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Tara Brach
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| While fear is a natural part of our make up, many of us suffering when the “on” button gets jammed. This talk looks at how our fears generate habitual patterns of physical tension, anxious thinking, emotions and behaviors; and how this constellation prevents us from inhabiting our full wisdom and love. We then explore two interrelated pathways of healing—unconditional presence, and resourcing, or cultivating access to safety and belonging (from the IMCW Fall 2018 7-Day Silent Retreat). |
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2020-08-19
Radical Love: Part 2 – Loving Ourselves into Healing
49:16
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Tara Brach
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| Radical love sees and cherishes the sacred that lives through all beings. In this talk, we’ll look at the barrier to loving the life that is right here—what we call self—and how we can call on the light and warmth of awareness to awaken that love. |
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2020-08-19
Meditation: A Present Heart
22:12
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Tara Brach
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| This guided practice emphasizes bringing a gentle and kind attention to our bodies, and then including all experience with a receptive presence. We close by identifying a part of our being that is asking for a healing attention, and offering loving presence to ourself and then to others. |
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2020-08-12
Meditation: Cultivating an Intimate Presence
24:24
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Tara Brach
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| This guided meditation cultivates a relaxed, gentle presence with whatever expressions of life are arising in the moment. We begin by releasing and opening through the body, and then include all sensations, feelings and sounds in an intimate, allowing presence. |
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