The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
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.
2010-12-31 Minting Gold - Embodying the Awakened Heart 65:43
Our core conditioning expresses as both a longing for love and the pain of not trusting we are loveable. This talk explores how we create the experience of separation, and the key meditative heart- trainings that lead us to realizing and living from the truth of our connectedness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC 2010 - IMCW New Year's Retreat - Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2010-12-29 The Path of Transformation 62:31
Awakening arises out of presence with the changing ground of our lives. This talk explores three key gateways to liberating presence: forgiveness, inner fire (aspiration) and a deep inquiry into the nature of our own mind.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC 2010 - IMCW New Year's Retreat - Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2010-12-15 Seeing Beyond the Veil 1:15:45
The source of our suffering is that we become identified with egoic roles and defenses that separate us from the truth of what we are. This talk explores some of the constricting identities that we take on, and the process of compassionate presence that reconnects us with our natural vitality, openheartedness and wisdom. We then enlarge our focus to seeing past the veil that obscures the sacred presence that shines through all beings.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-12-08 Ask the Friend for Love 1:18:56
Prayer, when cultivated consciously, energizes and guides us on the spiritual path. This talk investigates the difference between wanting, with it's narrow fixation, and the prayer that arises out of our deep heart's longing. We explore how living prayer, the prayer that arises from consciously inhabiting longing, can carry us home to loving presence. As John O'Donahue writes, prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-24 Loving Life: Gratitude and Generosity 1:16:36
Love is innate, and blossoms as we intentionally cultivate it. This talk on two natural expressions of loving life--gratitude and generosity--includes several guided reflections that awaken the heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-17 A Listening Presence - Three Domains of Training 1:15:43
Cultivating the capacity for listening is essential to loving well and to realizing the truth of who we are. This talk focuses on three key facets of deep listening--non-distractedness, not-controlling and seeking to understand-- that can awaken an intimacy with our inner life and others. Guided meditations on listening precede and are included within the body of the talk.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-10 Releasing Karmic Patterns 1:20:15
We all have conditioned patterns of thinking and behaving that keep us identified as a separate, deficient self. This talk investigates the roots of this conditioning and ways that pausing and awakening mindfulness can free us to live from our inherent love and wisdom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-03 Part 4 - Living from Presence - Introductory Series 1:23:00
Our human potential is to express the wings of presence--mindfulness and lovingkindness--through all facets of daiy living. This talk explores the practices that enable us to both serve and savor this precious life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-10-27 Part 3 - Mindfulness of Thoughts - Introductory Series 1:14:00
The primary element in meditation is training to awaken from the trance of thoughts. This class explores two key ways that mindfulness supports this awakening. The first is using wise reflection to discern if thoughts are imprisoning us in fear or serving healing and freedom. The second is recognizing when we are in the virtual reality of thinking, and learning to "come back" to living presence. It is by inhabiting this non-conceptual presence that we have access to the love, wisdom and freedom that we cherish.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-10-20 Part 2 - Mindfulness of Emotions - Introductory Series 1:24:15
Our conditioning is to live in a reactive trance of either resisting or become possessed by strong emotions. This reactivity fuels a trance of being separate from others, and feeling defective and insecure. In this class we explore how to free ourselves from this suffering by bringing a mindful and kind awareness to the stories and feelings that make up our emotional life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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