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The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
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Dharma Talks
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2024-03-20
Meditation: Openhearted Presence
21:48
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Tara Brach
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This meditation guides us in embodying loving presence through a body scan, and then meeting whatever arises with a tender heart.
“Resting in the awareness that includes this changing life, regarding the changing waves with care, moment-to-moment. The moments of waking up out of thought are actually profoundly transformational. If you notice thinking and then plant the seeds of kindness, that becomes the habit of the heart.” ~Tara
We close with a beautiful blessing-poem from John O’Donohue, from Beauty – The Invisible Embrace.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-03-13
Meditation: Cultivating a Gentle, Kind Attention
19:27
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Tara Brach
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This meditation calls on the image and felt sense of a smile as we scan through the body, and invites a receptive and caring presence, as we open our attention to the changing flow of life.
“Our freedom comes not from what is happening, but from how we are relating to it. See if you can relate with the spirit of ‘yes,’ allowing whatever arises to be here. And if it feels difficult, painful, then bringing some real kindness – a ‘yes’ with gentleness and kindness.” ~ Tara
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-03-06
Meditation: Letting Go of Doing
21:17
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Tara Brach
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Meditation becomes truly freeing in the moments when there is no controlling whatsoever; when nothing is resisted or grasped after. This guided meditation begins with a simple body scan, relaxing and awakening to sensations in the body and then including the play of sound.
We then let go of any doing, and simply notice and allow the changing flow of experience, letting life be just as it is. In this pure allowing presence we become aware of the background silence that is listening. The invitation is to relax and be the awareness that is conscious of all that is unfolding.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-03-06
Part 2: Healing Depression with Meditation
55:51
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Tara Brach
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Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness.
These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-28
Meditation: Refuge in Living Presence
22:18
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Tara Brach
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We spend great swaths of time in a trance that removes us from awareness of our body and senses. This meditation reconnects us by scanning through the body, including sounds and then resting in the field of awareness and aliveness. We practice relaxing and gently arriving again when thoughts carry us away; learning the pathway home to living presence.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-28
Part 1: Healing Depression with Meditation
63:34
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Tara Brach
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Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness.
These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-28
Guided Meditation Exploring the Judgmental Mind
37:15
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Donald Rothberg
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After a period of settling and general mindfulness practice, we invite noticing and being with any expressions of the judgmental mind (here called "judgments") if they occur. In the second part of the guided meditation, there is also a more direct investigation of a selected judgment, exploring it at the levels of body, emotions, and thought, and seeing whether any underlying painful or difficult experience can be noticed. We close with a brief three-part self-compassion practice (from Kristin Neff).
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center
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Monday and Wednesday Talks
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2024-02-21
Meditation: A Welcoming Heartspace
18:00
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Tara Brach
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Our pathway to peace and happiness is through opening, with tenderness, to our moment-to-moment experience. This meditation guides us first to be awake in our body and senses, and then to include the changing flow of life in a spacious, kind heart. We close with a short verse from poet Dorothy Hunt – “Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment.”
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-21
“Getting Over Yourself” – A Conversation between Tara Brach and Stephen Josephs
64:48
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Tara Brach
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Executive coach and author Stephen Josephs has worked with many top business leaders, guiding them in transcending the egoic conditioning that limit their impact on other people, and on societal change.
In this conversation we look at what he’s learned about inner freedom and awakening from his own trauma, from 60 years of spiritual practice, from models of adult development, and from the poetry of Lao Tzu.
Stephen and Tara have been close friends for over 50 years, and she considers him her first inspiration for a dedicated practice of meditation. His website is stephenjosephs.com.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-17
Appropriate Perception
1:22:49
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Nathan Glyde
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The Buddha encouraged us to play with perception in ways that reduce dukkha. This is from an Online Dharma Hall session with a meditation, a reflection, and responses to questions. The questions are not recorded for privacy reasons, the responses are shaped to allow for comprehension despite this.
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Gaia House
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Online Dharma Hall - February 2024
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2024-02-14
Letting Go of Controlling: The Path of Freedom – Part 2
60:28
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Tara Brach
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While it’s natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence. This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to thoughts, resisting feelings, holding tight to beliefs and armoring our heart.
We look at how egoic controlling manifests individually and as a society; the process of awakening from exclusive identification with a separate ego/self; what it means to die into a larger reality and the similarities of psychedelics and meditation in the process of letting go.
The gift of releasing the grip of controlling is true freedom; inhabiting the intrinsic beauty of our beings, and having our lives be an expression of creativity, wisdom and love.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-02-13
Q&A
49:32
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Ajahn Sucitto
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00:13 Q1 How can one develop self-love without being accused of being selfish? 08:33 Q2 How can I cope with repeating pain in the shoulders or back and strong surging of energy? Should one change position? 14:45 Q2 What is the purpose of being alive if not to experience the senses? Trying to dull out the senses to be mindful makes me wonder if we miss the true beauty of life. 27:40 Q3 I'm wondering about the effects of tension on the citta/ sensitivity. I'm aware of deep tension in my body which could have been there since childhood. Qigong and reclining meditation are good. 45:11 Q4 The manifestation of a category such as apple in your example, is that what is meant by nama? 47:25 Q5 What's a good balance of walking, standing and sitting?
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Buddhist Retreat Centre, Ixopo, South Africa
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Regaining the Center
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2024-02-10
What Skilful Means
1:19:51
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Nathan Glyde
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Exploring what (being) skilful means, and what (are) skilful means. The Dharma is not simple, and it is not overly complex. We need to find a middle way that is sufficiently dynamic and appropriate. This is from an Online Dharma Hall session with a meditation, a reflection, and responses to questions. The questions are not recorded for privacy reasons, the responses are shaped to allow for comprehension despite this.
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Gaia House
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Online Dharma Hall - February 2024
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2024-02-07
Meditation: Relaxed and Alert
19:37
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Tara Brach
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This meditation begins with a period of relaxing and collecting our attention with intentional long, deep breathing. We then deepen embodied presence, and widen to the awareness that includes sounds, sensations, feelings, breath, and all experience. When the mind drifts from this open, awake awareness, we gently return, re-relaxing and resting in an easeful, alert presence. Recorded at Tara’s Wednesday night class, the meditation ends with a sense of melting into community – relaxed and alert.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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2024-01-31
Letting Go of Controlling: The Path of Freedom – Part 1
56:09
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Tara Brach
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While it’s natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence. This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to thoughts, resisting feelings, holding tight to beliefs and armoring our heart.
We look at how egoic controlling manifests individually and as a society; the process of awakening from exclusive identification with a separate ego/self; what it means to die into a larger reality and the similarities of psychedelics and meditation in the process of letting go.
The gift of releasing the grip of controlling is true freedom; inhabiting the intrinsic beauty of our beings, and having our lives be an expression of creativity, wisdom and love.
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
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