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In Memoriam: Rick Woudenberg


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Tara Brach's Dharma Talks at Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
Tara Brach
A pervasive but often invisible source of suffering in our culture is self-aversion. We are a busy culture, and we move through our life feeling anxious and dissatisfied, but not fully conscious of how we neglect or judge our inner experience. We suffer from a lack of belonging: to our own bodies, to each other and to the earth. When we practice Buddhist meditation, we learn how to listen deeply and hold our life tenderly.
2012-10-28 Morning Question/Response 13:46
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC 2012 IMCW Fall Residential Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2012-10-27 Loving the Life Within Us 66:31
If we don't love the life we consider "self," we will not realize or live from the loving awareness that is our essence. This talk guides us in bringing a kind, accepting presence to our inner life, and discovering the vastness of what we really are.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC 2012 IMCW Fall Residential Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2012-10-24 Wise Investigation: Dissolving the Trance 1:20:25
If we are suffering, it is because we are believing something that is not true and caught in emotional reactivity. A key tool in meditation is investigation--actively inquiring into what is happening inside us. When we investigate with sincere interest and care, the light of our attention untangles difficult emotions and nourishes intimate relationships. As this light is turned toward awareness itself, it reveals the radiance and emptiness of our true nature.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-10-17 Question and Response with Tara 1:15:58
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-10-10 Part 2: Wise Intention: Living in Truth 1:19:16
Evolution has conditioned us to identify as an egoic self and to protect that identity. A key strategy is trying to control how others perceive us through pretense and deception. This talk explores the ways we disarm though dedicating ourselves to truthfulness, forgiving our defenses and taking a chance to name and make room for the vulnerability we have been armoring.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-10-03 Part 1: Wise Intention: the Compass of our Hearts 67:42
One of the most powerful spiritual practices in the world is to reflect on your heart's deepest intention. These two talks look at the way that ego-based intentions perpetuate thoughts, feelings and actions that keep us imprisoned in feeling separate and limited. In contrast, remembering our deeper intentions call us home to the freedom of our true nature.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-09-26 Part 2: Embodied Spirit 1:19:36
Our body--this changing field of sensation--is a portal into pure Being. These talks explore the resistance we have to embodied presence, the pathways that enable us to awaken through our bodies, and the blessings of realization that arise as we let go over and over into the aliveness of our senses. NOTE: Part 2 specifically addresses the challenge of arriving in embodied presence when we are facing traumatic fear, and other intense and difficult emotions.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-09-19 Part 1: Embodied Spirit 1:15:43
Our body--this changing field of sensation--is a portal into pure Being. These talks explore the resistance we have to embodied presence, the pathways that enable us to awaken through our bodies, and the blessings of realization that arise as we let go over and over into the aliveness of our senses.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-09-12 The Freedom of Yes 1:24:10
How do we accept ourselves or others when our actions are causing harm? Does acceptance mean passivity? Does it undermine our efforts towards change? This talk responds to these questions with a simple, illuminating and challenging principle about genuine transformation: Acceptance is the prerequisite of true healing and awakening. Only when we've paused to recognize and allow this moment's experience to be fully as it is, can we respond from our intelligence and compassion to prevent future suffering.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2012-09-05 Trance of the Unreal Other 1:22:49
We are conditioned to perceive people as unreal others- two dimensional characters who lack sentience, vulnerability and goodness. This is often most insidious when we filter people through demeaning culturally driven stereotypes. This talk explores the suffering of living in a trance that separates us from others, and how our practices of mindfulness and compassion enable us to experience what Thoreau calls the "miracle" of seeing through another's eyes, if only for a moment.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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