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Tara Brach's Dharma Talks
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.
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2020-06-10 Anger and Transformation 49:21
The purpose of anger is to let us know there’s an obstacle to our wellbeing, and to energize us to act. While natural and necessary for survival and thriving, this powerful energy often possesses us and leads to suffering. This talk explores how we can use the RAIN meditation in our personal and societal life, to meet anger with a mindful, compassionate presence. Freed from the identification with a limited, separate reactive self, we can listen to the message of anger, draw on the purity of its energy, and respond from our natural intelligence, creativity and care.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-06-03 Meditation: Homecoming to Wakeful Presence 20:04
This meditation begins with us standing in mindful movement, guiding us in awakening awareness in the body. Then in sitting practice, we open all our senses, resting in the wakeful presence that can include the changing waves of our life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-06-03 A Courageous Presence with Racism 38:13
Anti-Black racism is the core wound of American culture, and we each have a role to play in fighting racism, a medicine to bring to these times. This talk explores how we can offer an honest and courageous presence to key domains of this suffering. We then look at affirming that Black lives truly matter with our dedicated and wise action.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-05-20 Meditation: The Art of Letting Go 19:15
Letting go means releasing the resistance we have to experiencing the present moment. This meditation guides us to let go of the thoughts that block our immediate sensory experience, the tension in the body that reduces aliveness and the armoring around the heart that dulls our sensitivity and tenderness toward life itself.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-05-20 Embracing Uncertainty: Sheltering in Love - Part 9 44:57
How we tolerate uncertainty - during current times and throughout our lives - has a powerful effect on our capacity for presence, aliveness and love. This talk explores the conditioned ways of reacting to insecurity that contract us, and pathways of letting go of resistance, opening to Beginner's mind and discovering a timeless, wise and loving presence in the midst of inevitable change.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-05-13 Meditation: Living, Embodied Presence 22:32
This practice begins with a full body scan and then guides us to return again and again to our senses. What we find is a dynamic presence, a Hereness that feels like home. The meditation ends with a beautiful poem by David Wagoner called, “Lost.”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-05-13 Sheltering in Love – Part 8: Finding Freedom in the Midst of Failure 45:56
Everyone faces personal failure, and it’s an extremely raw and painful feeling. If we have the courage to stay with the feelings, failure can become a portal to the realization of who we are beyond the imperfect separate self. This talk calls on Samuel Beckett’s wonderful quote (referenced by Pema Chödron), “Fail, Fail again, Fail better,” and offers guidance on finding freedom as we move through some of our most difficult moments.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-05-06 Meditation: Openhearted Presence 23:25
This meditation guides us in embodying loving presence through a body scan, and then meeting whatever arises with a tender heart. We close with a beautiful blessing-poem from John O’Donohue.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-05-06 Sheltering in Love – Part 7: Awakening from the Prison of Blame 43:14
A key way stress disconnects us from ourselves and each other is through the limbic reactivity of blame. This talk helps us to recognize the suffering of chronic blame, resentment and anger, and to bring a healing presence to the vulnerability that underlies blame.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2020-04-29 Sheltering In Love (Part 6): Loneliness as a Portal to Sacred Presence (Part 2) 51:05
The root of suffering is the pain of separation, the fears and loneliness that arise when we have forgotten our intrinsic belonging to each other and to all of life. These two talks look at the epidemic of loneliness predating the pandemic, and how loneliness is exacerbated in our current global crisis for those living alone, and for those feeling disconnected to themselves and others. We then explore how a courageous practice of compassionate presence - with our inner life, and in relationships - can turn the energy of loneliness into a current of healing and freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

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