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Dharma Talks
given at Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2018-04-11
Meditation: A Listening, Receptive Awareness
23:56
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Tara Brach
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| The capacity to truly listen allows us to realize the vast and sensitive awareness that is our true essence. This meditation focuses on listening to sounds, and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life. When carried off by thought, we notice and then relax back into a receptive and listening presence. There’s nothing to do, simply letting life be as it is, and resting in the freedom of awake, open awareness. |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-04-11
Listening with an Awake Heart - Part 1
50:22
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Tara Brach
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| Deep listening - to our inner life, each other and our world - is an intrinsic expression of our awakened heart. Yet because we have strong conditioning to be caught in wants and fears, there is often much interference in the field of communications. These two talks are an opportunity to intentionally deepen your capacity to listen in a way that leads to increased understanding and connection. You’ll have the opportunity to investigate what gets between you and deep listening, and to practice the key elements that nurture receptive presence. |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-04-04
Meditation: Awareness and Flow
19:45
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Tara Brach
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| This guided practice awakens all the senses with an embodied presence, allowing an opening to the moment-to-moment changing flow of experience. We then relax back, resting as the changeless open awareness that is conscious of the flow, and includes all life. |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-04-04
From Head to Heart
55:51
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Tara Brach
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| If we are suffering, we are believing an interpretation of reality that is limiting and untrue. At these times we are imprisoned in a painful looping of fear-driven thoughts and feelings. This talk explores the ways our practices of mindfulness, compassion and loving presence can guide us from addictive thinking to perceiving life with a wise heart. |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-03-28
Meditation: Continuous Space Suffused with Awareness
18:41
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Tara Brach
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| By learning to inhabit the body, we discover the space and aliveness that fills the universe. In this meditation we are guided through the body, filling different domains with presence. We then open into the continuous awake space that is both within and surrounds the body. When we notice the mind drifts, we relax back to be that awake space, aware of the changing flow of sensations, thoughts, feelings and sounds.
We close with a simple prayer:
May we come home to the light, love and aliveness that’s our deep nature. May we live our lives from loving presence.
May that loving presence ripple out in a way that brings peace and healing to our world.
Namaste |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-03-28
Namaste: Seeing the Truth of Who We Are
59:32
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Tara Brach
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| A gift of evolving consciousness is the capacity to recognize and honor the sacred awareness that lives through our own and all beings. This capacity is blocked by our identification with our “mask” or ego self, and not seeing past other people’s masks. In this talk we reflect together on some key filters of superior/inferior and good/bad that shape the trance of a narrowed identity, and then explore how mindfulness and kindness free us to inhabit the vastness of our natural awareness. We close with tasting the possibility of bringing the spirit of Namaste to ourselves, others and all beings.
Rumi writes: ““Are you searching for your true self? Then come out of your own prison. Leave the little creek and join the mighty river that flows into the ocean. Like an ox, don’t pull the wheel of this world on your back. Take off the burden. Whirl and circle, and rise above the wheel of the world. There is another view.” |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-03-14
Meditation: Inhabiting Our Body, Realizing Wholeness
24:11
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Tara Brach
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| Awakening awareness in the body is the portal to resting in boundless and dynamic presence. This guided practice scans the body from feet up, and helps us inhabit all parts of our body. As we open to the aliveness and space inside the body, we discover a permeability that allows us to inhabit the universe of aliveness and space, form and formlessness. With this homecoming to whole beingness is an intrinsic experience of freedom. |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-03-07
Meditation: Homecoming with the Breath
23:52
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Tara Brach
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| This meditation focuses on the breath as an anchor for homecoming. We begin with an intentional breath (coherence breathing) and then establish the natural breath as a home base. The instructions are to rest in the breath, offering a relaxed, intimate intention. Other waves of sensation or emotion are included when they ask for attention as we cultivate an open and full mindful presence. Our freedom arises as we recognize the formless awareness that is our home, and the natural and ever-changing waves that live through us.
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.
by Wu Men Hui-k’ai
English version by Stephen Mitchell |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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2018-03-07
Awakening Our Body’s Awareness – Part 1
51:13
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Tara Brach
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| Mindful awareness of our bodies is a portal to full aliveness, wisdom and love. These two classes will explore the trance that takes us away from our body, the pathways home, ways of working with pain, and the gifts of an embodied presence.
“Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains,
and the maker of canyons and mountains!
All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars.”
― Kabir |
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IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
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