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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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2019-04-10 Beyond the Controlling Self – Part 2 49:22
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It’s natural that we do what we can to ward off danger and further ourselves. While our control strategies – such as aggression, judging, planning, seeking approval, pretending – have a developmental role, they are not a recipe for happiness, intimacy and freedom. An essential part of our evolution is to recognize when we are over-managing our lives, and learn to let go of the controls. These talks explore how we can release the grip of the over-controller, and the profound awakening of our hearts and minds that is possible in the shift from doing to being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-04-03 Meditation: Letting Go into Living Presence 18:14
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This guided meditation starts with a scan that invites relaxing and awakening through the body. We then allow life – sounds, sensations, aliveness – to live through us, resting in open presence. When there is tightening, holding or confinement in thoughts, we recognize and re-open, letting go into the presence that is always here.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-04-03 Beyond the Controlling Self – Part 1 50:29
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It’s natural that we do what we can to ward off danger and further ourselves. While our control strategies – such as aggression, judging, planning, seeking approval, pretending – have a developmental role, they are not a recipe for happiness, intimacy and freedom. An essential part of our evolution is to recognize when we are over-managing our lives, and learn to let go of the controls. These talks explore how we can release the grip of the over-controller, and the profound awakening of our hearts and minds that is possible in the shift from doing to being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-27 Meditation: Saying “Yes” to Reality 17:37
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Our suffering comes from tensing and resisting the life that’s here. This meditation guides us to relax and awaken our body and senses, and resting in presence, allow life to be as it is. As our “Yes” to the changing flow becomes full, we discover the freedom of awake awareness itself.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-27 The Four Remembrances 50:43
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When we attune to the reality of impermanence and death, we remember what most matters to us. But in daily life we can lose precious swaths of time in a reactive trance, on our way somewhere else, and lost in problem solving, judgment and worry. This talk reflects on four remembrances or practices – Pausing, Yes to life, Turning toward love, and Resting in awareness – that help us awaken from trance and live true to the loving presence that is our essence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-20 Meditation: Being Here (with community OM’s) 20:42
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We miss many moments of this precious life drifting in a virtual thought world. This meditation helps us collect and calm ourselves with the breath; relax through our bodies; and then include the changing dance of sounds, sensations and feeling in open awareness. Our practice is to recognize the quality of Hereness, and when we drift, return again to this open presence, relaxing with the changing flow of life. “…learning to relax with the flow of life… to be fully here.”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-20 Embodied Presence: Portal to the Sacred – Part 2 50:54
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This two part series explores how we regularly leave our body and skim life’s surface in a mental trance, and the ways we can train our attention to come home again. We look at working with physical and emotional pain, and the gifts of love, wisdom, creativity and aliveness that arise as we learn to fully inhabit these living forms and all our senses with awareness. Includes a meditation to guide us in working with pain.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-13 Meditation: Entering Heartspace with the “Smile-Down” 18:28
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The practice of visualizing and feeling a smile spreading through the body helps us access the natural tenderness and openness of our being. This meditation guides us in the smile-down, and then invites a full opening and resting in openhearted presence. We close by bringing that awake heart to an area of difficulty in our life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-13 Embodied Presence: Portal to the Sacred – Part 1 47:08
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This two part series explores how we regularly leave our body and skim life’s surface in a mental trance, and the ways we can train our attention to come home again. We look at working with physical and emotional pain, and the gifts of love, wisdom, creativity and aliveness that arise as we learn to fully inhabit these living forms and all our senses with awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-06 Meditation: Relaxing with Life 22:56
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This meditation includes a mindful body scan and guidance in relaxing with the changing waves of experience. When we say “Yes” to the moment, we open to the sea of awareness that can include, with care, whatever arises.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-03-06 Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 2 54:06
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This series of talks offers guidance in transforming conflict into a portal for awakening your understanding, flexibility and compassion. We look at how to heal our own unmet needs and not be dependent on others changing; and how to engage with another person when both are dedicated to mindful communication. We also extend our exploration to societal conflict. The talks are accompanied by reflections and meditations that can directly enhance your capacity to respond to conflict from the most wise and caring part of your being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-27 Meditation: Resting in a Sea of Presence 20:49
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This mindful body scan leads us into a practice of relaxing back into awareness, and recognizing the changing waves of sensations, sounds and feelings in the foreground. As we let go into the sea of presence, we discover am increasing sense of wholeness and peace. The meditation ends with a brief lovingkindness prayer.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-27 Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 1 52:31
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This series of talks offers guidance in transforming conflict into a portal for awakening your understanding, flexibility and compassion. We look at how to heal our own unmet needs and not be dependent on others changing; and how to engage with another person when both are dedicated to mindful communication. We also extend our exploration to societal conflict. The talks are accompanied by reflections and meditations that can directly enhance your capacity to respond to conflict from the most wise and caring part of your being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-20 The Sacred Art of Listening 48:42
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Just as presence is the heart of meditation, so deep listening is at the center of all conscious, loving relationships. This talk explores how our wants and fears block listening, ways we can deepen our capacity for listening, and the healing that unfolds when we truly feel heard by another (a special talk from the archives). What happens when you’re really listening?
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-20 Meditation: Listening to Life 18:53
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The attitude of meditation is one of engaged listening – a relaxed, receptive yet intimate attention. This meditation explores how we can listen to sounds, listen to and feel sensations, and then relax back into the ocean of awareness that includes and perceives the changing waves. In this relaxing back, we realize the peace and freedom of inhabiting our wholeness and essence (a favorite from the archives).
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-13 Meditation: Relaxing Back into Living Presence 18:54
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When we are lost in thoughts our mind contracts, our body tightens and we disconnect from true openheartedness. The pathway home is through “relaxing back” and reopening our attention to our senses, relaxing through our body, and gently contacting the felt sense in our heart. By repeatedly relaxing back, we become increasingly familiar with the vibrancy, tenderness and openness of true presence. “It’s from a relaxed presence that we can most feel the tenderness of our hearts."
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-13 Spiritual Reparenting 52:29
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When we are not sufficiently nurtured in childhood, we are inclined toward anxiety, depression, addiction and other forms of suffering. In a deep way, we do not feel at home with others. We are disconnected from our own body, heart and spirit. This talk explores how meditation offers “spiritual reparenting” as we learn to bring interest, understanding and love to our own inner vulnerability. This process of healing extends to our relationships with others and our larger society – by reaching out to widening circles with interest and care, we bring increasing harmony and peace to our world (a favorite from the archives). “That question: Where does it hurt? We need to address it to everyone, if we really want to understand each other.” Ruby Sales
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-06 Meditation: The Practice of RAIN 20:07
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The acronym RAIN – Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture – guides us in bringing mindfulness and compassion to difficult emotions. With practice, we can find our way home to open-hearted presence in the midst of whatever arises.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-02-06 Living with Courageous Presence 46:59
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The essence of courage is to willingly feel our vulnerability; this is what allows us to respond to life with an undefended, wise heart. This talk explores the ways we resist opening to vulnerability, and three key steps in cultivating a courageous presence. “What does it mean to be courageous at this moment?”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-01-23 Meditation: Living Loving Awareness 19:53
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By bringing our full attention to the aliveness in the body, we can open to the experience of interior space and the space that includes all sensations and sounds. This then allows us to perceive continuous space filled with the light of awareness. This meditation attunes us to these dimensions of awareness: continuous open space, heart space and full aliveness. We end with a Zen poem that invites us to rest in this living, loving awareness, and know it as home.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-01-23 Love for Imperfect Things – featuring special guest, Haemin Sunim, with Tara Brach 58:24
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Internationally known Buddhist teacher and writer, Haemin Sunim, talks about his new book – Love for Imperfect Things. Then, he and Tara talk together and respond to questions.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-01-16 Meditation: Relaxing Back into Awareness 20:04
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When we fully inhabit our body, we discover the space and wakefulness of awareness itself. In this meditation, we rest in this open awareness, and when the attention narrows into thoughts, we practice relaxing back into the openness that includes passing sounds, sensations and feelings. We close with a brief offering of lovingkindness to our own hearts and our world (with community OMs – no bell at end).
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-01-16 Realizing Your Deepest Intention 49:31
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The Buddha taught that this whole life – including our thoughts, feelings and actions – arise from the tip of intention. While our intentions are usually marbled with wanting and fear, when intention comes into the light of consciousness, it unfolds into its most pure essence. This talk explores ways that when we are stuck in reactivity, we can become aware of intention, and find our way to the aspiration that expresses our most awake and loving heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-01-09 Meditation: Letting Go… Letting Be 16:57
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This guided meditation invites us to imagine a clenched fist relaxing open, and explores this in releasing contractions in the body as well as the grip of thoughts. When we deeply let go and let be, our energy flows freely. We reconnect with our natural aliveness, love and awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2019-01-09 Finding True Refuge: Pathways of Remembering 56:02
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This talk explores the three archetypal refuges of awareness (Buddha-nature), truth (Dharma) and love (Sangha) through stories, illustrations and reflections. We end with a Refuge ceremony that can be done by anyone who feels drawn. (To participate you will need a 20” red string.)
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-31 Meditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves 26:54
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We can’t truly open to the waves of life unless we recognize our Oceanness, the formless awareness that is our source. This meditation begins with awakening the senses and then invites us to discover the spacious presence in the background of all experience.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2018 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2018-12-30 From Judgment to Self-Compassion 55:58
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When we’ve turned on ourselves with blame and aversion, it’s very difficult to arouse self-compassion. This talk looks at the role of nurturing in freeing our hearts, and offers practice in three key steps that enable us to embrace ourselves with a healing presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2018 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2018-12-26 Meditation: Awakening the Heart – Giving and Receiving Loving Blessings 11:06
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Our hearts awaken as we express and receive love in an embodied, conscious way. This guided practice brings our attention to dear ones in our life, and explores how we discover deep communion through offering and letting in love.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-26 Transforming Two Fears: FOF and FOMO 51:21
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Two common fears can block us from our full potential – fear of failure (FOF), and fear of missing out (FOMO). This talk explores how to meet these fears with mindful presence, and discover within them the essence energies of loving awareness and full aliveness (a favorite from the archives).
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-19 Meditation: Arriving in Open Presence 18:00
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This meditation begins with a receptive opening to body sensations and sounds, and the invitation to rest in wakeful presence. We are reminded that each time we awaken from thoughts and arrive again in presence, we are deepening the pathway home. The sitting closes with a brief lovingkindness prayer.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-19 Three Core Capacities in Loving Fully 36:58
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This talk looks at three ways of awakening our hearts—seeing goodness, feeling appreciation as a bodily experience, and expressing our care. We are then guided in developing each of these capacities by focusing our attention on someone we care about, with whom we’d like to experience our full potential for loving.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-12 Meditation: Aware and Alive 19:59
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Just as a cup is full with water, this body is filled with awareness. As we sense the awareness inside the body, and the awareness that listens to sounds beyond the body, we discover the continuous space of awareness that includes, and gives rise to this entire creation. Opening in this way allows for homecoming to wholeness and freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-12 Part 2 – Healing Anxiety – How Meditation Frees Us 51:25
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Anxiety and the fear of failure is a pervasive suffering around the world. It is also increasing—along with the pace of life, over-consuming, addiction, noise, polarization and fears for our planet. How do we calm ourselves in a way that brings inner freedom and serves the healing of our larger world? These two talks explore the power of awareness in evolving ourselves beyond the anxiety that grips and confines our lives - includes working with sleep issues.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-12-05 Three Attitudes that Nourish a Liberating Practice 52:41
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A key spiritual inquiry is, “In this moment, what most serves awakening?” Rather than a particular style of meditation practice, it is our way of relating to our experience – our attitude – that frees our hearts. This talk explores the attitudes that are an expression of our innately open, wakeful and loving awareness, and that carry us to realization. (a favorite from the archives)
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-28 Meditation: Awareness, Aliveness and Space 18:36
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This guided meditation awakens our awareness within our body, extends to include sound, and invites a resting as awareness that includes all passing waves of experience.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-28 Part 1 – Healing Anxiety – How Meditation Frees Us 54:38
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Anxiety and the fear of failure is a pervasive suffering around the world. It is also increasing—along with the pace of life, over-consuming, addiction, noise, polarization and fears for our planet. How do we calm ourselves in a way that brings inner freedom and serves the healing of our larger world? These two talks explore the power of awareness in evolving ourselves beyond the anxiety that grips and confines our lives.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-21 Meditation: Yes to Life 19:52
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After relaxing our bodies and quieting our minds, this meditation guides us to open to the changing experience of being alive. We ask ourselves two questions: “What is Happening Inside me?” and “Can I be with this?” By learning to bring an unconditional presence and an accepting Yes to our lives, we begin to touch openheartedness and freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-21 Authentic Thanks Giving 49:26
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How do we awaken our natural capacities for gratitude and generosity? This talk explores the pathways of honest presence and purposeful cultivation, and offers several reflections that guide us in contacting and expressing our love.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-14 Meditation: The Presence Beyond Thoughts 17:33
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We spend many life moments in a trance of thinking. This meditation awakens the senses through a body scan, and attention to sound. We then rest in the presence that can come alive in the gap between thoughts—the presence that is our true home.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-14 Survival of the Nurtured – Our Path to Belonging 53:26
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We flourish when nurtured with love and understanding. Yet for so many, the violence of our society and lack of attuned caretakers has severed trust and belonging. This talk explores how meditation and conscious relating with each other can restore the connections so vital to healing and spiritual freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-07 Meditation: Whole Body Breathing 19:52
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This guided meditation includes a body scan and invites the receptivity and letting-go of whole body breathing. Once we have awakened the vitality and presence throughout the body, we have access to the formless dimension, the awareness that is our source.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-11-07 Part 2 – The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion 54:58
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The compassion that arises from mindful awareness can heal our inner wounds, interpersonal conflict and the suffering in our world. These two talks focus on cultivating self-compassion and compassion for others. They look at the blocks to compassion and accessible powerful practices that awaken the full wisdom and tenderness of our hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-10-24 Meditation: Resting in Awake Awareness 18:52
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This practice opens with a body scan, employing the image and felt sense of a smile to awaken awareness through the body. We then open to all the senses, and rest in the awareness that includes this changing life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-10-24 Part 1 – The Jewel in the Lotus: Cultivating Compassion 50:35
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The compassion that arises from mindful awareness can heal our inner wounds, interpersonal conflict and the suffering in our world. These two talks focus on cultivating self-compassion and compassion for others. They look at the blocks to compassion and accessible powerful practices that awaken the full wisdom and tenderness of our hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-10-17 Meditation: Relaxing Back into the Mystery 18:26
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All true meditation guides us back to presence, and the mystery that is our source. In this guided meditation we awaken the senses, collect with the breath, and when lost in thought, practice relaxing back into the aliveness and awareness that is always here. We close with a beautiful poem from poet Danna Faulds.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-10-17 Part 2: Rewiring for Happiness and Freedom 51:10
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The Buddha said, “I would not be teaching this (a path of awakening) if genuine happiness and freedom were not possible.” While this is our potential, we each have deep conditioning to get stuck in feelings of fear, deficiency and separation from others. These talks explore the two interdependent pathways of undoing the conditioning that blocks our potential. In Part I we will look at how we can intentionally arouse states of well-being, and with practice, develop them into ongoing traits that bring presence and joy to our lives. In Part II, we will investigate how to cultivate an unconditional presence, and the radical acceptance and love, that are the grounds of true happiness and inner freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2018-10-07 Worrier Pose – Finding Freedom from the Body of Fear 59:35
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While fear is a natural part of our make up, many of us suffering when the “on” button gets jammed. This talk looks at how our fears generate habitual patterns of physical tension, anxious thinking, emotions and behaviors; and how this constellation prevents us from inhabiting our full wisdom and love. We then explore two interrelated pathways of healing—unconditional presence, and resourcing, or cultivating access to safety and belonging (from the 2018 IMCW Fall Retreat).
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2018 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2018-10-07 Vipassana or Insight Meditation and Instruction: A Path of Practice from Retreat 31:15
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Vipassana, also known as insight meditation, is training in bringing a clear mindful attention to our moment to moment experience. We begin by relaxing through the body and then resting attention with the breath – or some other sensory anchor – and allowing the mind to settle. Then we open to whatever is predominant or calling our attention – sensations, emotions, sounds – meeting each arising experience with a clear, kind attention. The gift of this process is discovering balance in the midst of the changing flow, and gaining deep insight into the nature of reality.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2018 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2018-10-06 Loving Kindness - Awakening and Expressing our Heart (Short talk and Guided meditation) 36:50
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This short talk and guided meditation remind us that we each have the capacity to awaken our hearts. We explore together the lovingkindness (metta) meditation, and emphasize holding our own being and dear ones with a tender, open and loving presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2018 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2018-10-03 Meditation: Coming Home with the Breath 14:48
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Our breath is always available as a pathway back to presence. This simple meditation guides us to relax and awaken in the body, and then establishes the breath as a home base for our attention. Our practice is to notice when the mind becomes distracted, and gently return to our breath and senses. This helps the mind to become increasingly settled, calm and clear. We close with a short heart blessing.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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