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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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2016-12-30 Meditation: A Liberating Awareness - Embodying Full Presence 30:08
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This meditation establishes fertile grounds for presence by gladdening the mind, a mindful body scan, collecting the attention and including all that arises in a kind, clear presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2016-12-28 Love - and Death 61:32
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To live our lives fully, we need to embrace the natural unfolding of birthing and dying. Yet we are deeply conditioned to resist loss, to pull away from fear and grief. Through a powerful Inuit story shared by Clarissa Estes, this talk explores how our practices of presence can open us to what we avoid, and free us to love without holding back.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2016-12-28 AM Instruction and Question/Response 12:10
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2016-12-28 Morning Meditation - Awareness and Aliveness 26:44
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2016-12-21 The Revolution of Tenderness – Part 2 65:54
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These two talks explore our capacity to be tender – sensitive and responsive to ourselves and others. This capacity marks a radical evolutionary shift from a self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life lived from the realization of our collective belonging and the preciousness of all life. The talks examine the conditioning that inclines us toward dissociation and emotional reactivity, and the practices of presence that evolve our heart and awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-12-14 The Revolution of Tenderness - Part 1 1:15:33
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These two talks explore our capacity to be tender - sensitive and responsive to ourselves and others. This capacity marks a radical evolutionary shift from a self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life lived from the realization of our collective belonging and the preciousness of all life. The talks examine the conditioning that inclines us toward dissociation and emotional reactivity, and the practices of presence that evolve our heart and awareness. from Tara’s talk: Pope Francis invites us to “live the revolution of tenderness,” which is expressed through closeness, compassion and service...
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-12-07 Spiritual Reparenting 1:12:21
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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, and 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. "How do we love ourselves into healing?" From a place of caring, ask, "Where does it hurt?"
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-11-23 “Play a Greater Part” – Part 2 - Bodhisattva for our Times 1:18:14
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During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what’s happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. These two talks are a reflection on how we as awakening bodhisattvas can evolve our consciousness in a way that serves authentic societal healing and transformation. “Though I do not expect a plant to spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” ~ Thoreau
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-11-16 "Play a Greater Part" - Bodhisattva for our Times - Part 1 69:16
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During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what’s happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that is so prevalent in our societies. These two talks are a reflection on how we as awakening bodhisattvas can evolve our consciousness in a way that serves authentic societal healing and transformation.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-11-10 Trusting the Gold 69:56
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When we are unaware of the emotions and beliefs that shape our experience, we are in a trance characterized by an identity as a separate, incomplete self. Trance obscures the awareness and love that is our deepest essence. This talk explores the two key pathways of awakening from trance and recognizing and trusting the gold of our true nature.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-11-07 Morning Instruction with Question and Response 13:45
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-11-06 The Wings of Awakening - Self-Honesty and Love 62:25
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We evolve our consciousness by bringing a clear and kind attention to the tangles of suffering. This talk explores how the "second arrow" of self-judgment imprisons us in emotional reactivity, and the pathways of awakening awareness that reconnect us with our full human potential.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-11-05 Heart Meditation: Taking In the Goodness 24:56
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Rumi said, “Whenever some kindness comes to you, turn that way – toward the source of kindness.” This meditation guides us to look for the source of loving and to turn in that direction. It begins with a lovingkindness practice that spreads the image of a smile into the body, then continues with a practice of seeing the goodness of ourselves and others. “What’s it like when you communicate your appreciation of goodness to another person?”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Fall Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-11-02 Awakening Consciousness in Shadowy Times - Part 2 68:50
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The shadow is the unfaced, unlived fears and emotional pain in our individual and collective psyche. When not brought into awareness it expresses as “no” - the anger, aggression, hopelessness and cynicism that is resisting and opposing life. In this talk we explore how to evolve our consciousness by bringing “yes” - clarity and loving acceptance - to the parts of our being we have been unwilling to feel. This loving “yes” reconnects us to our basic goodness and helps others do the same.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-10-26 Awakening Consciousness in Shadowy Times 63:59
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On both individual and societal levels, suffering arises from the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche. This talk looks at two interrelated ways of practice that help us to awaken from a limiting self-sense characterized by “something is wrong with me, or you.” In addition to guided meditations, our time includes sharing from participants.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-10-19 Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 3) 66:32
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The ground of the spiritual path is realizing the nature of reality and living our lives from this awakened heart and mind. The first of this three-part series examines the process of radical self-honesty – the non-judgmental recognition of what’s going on inside us, and especially what has been outside of our conscious awareness. The second talk deepens this process with the practices of self-inquiry, looking directly into the one who is seeking truth. The third part explores the challenges and blessings of honesty in our relationships.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-10-12 Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 2 of 3) 1:12:41
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The ground of the spiritual path is realizing the nature of reality and living our lives from this awakened heart and mind. The first of this three-part series examines the process of radical self-honesty – the non-judgmental recognition of what’s going on inside us, and especially what has been outside of our conscious awareness. The second talk deepens this process with the practices of self-inquiry, looking directly into the one who is seeking truth. The third part explores the challenges and blessings of honesty in our relationships.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-10-05 Seeking What’s True – Within Ourselves, Beyond Our Self, With Each Other – (Part 1 of 3) 1:11:31
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The ground of the spiritual path is realizing the nature of reality and living our lives from this awakened heart and mind. The first of this three-part series examines the process of radical self-honesty – the non-judgmental recognition of what’s going on inside us, and especially what has been outside of our conscious awareness. The second talk deepens this process with the practices of self-inquiry, looking directly into the one who is seeking truth. The third part explores the challenges and blessings of honesty in our relationships.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-09-28 Spiritual Empowerment 1:17:16
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When we are trying to control life, we are removed from presence, and act in ways that separate us from others and solidify the experience of being a insecure self. This talk explores our often unconscious strategies of seeking power, and the ways that mindful and compassionate awareness reconnects us to the source of true empowerment. When empowered we tap into the universal flow of love, wisdom and creativity. We are free to respond to life with “a heart that is ready for anything.”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-08-31 Letting Go – The Freedom of Awake Awareness 1:12:52
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We know we need to let go of harmful habits like obsessive worry, blame and over consuming to experience true well-being, yet much of the time we are stuck and judge ourselves for being out of control. This talk explores what’s so difficult about letting go and how we can’t will it but we can be willing. We then explore the shift to awake awareness that enables a natural dissolution of clinging and resistance, and the deep peace and freedom of letting be.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-08-27 Retreat Instruction on RAIN with Question-Response 14:23
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Women's Retreat - The Heart of Buddhist Meditation
2016-08-27 Retreat - Morning Instruction and Guided Meditation 24:48
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Women's Retreat - The Heart of Buddhist Meditation
2016-08-26 (retreat) Your Future Self - Turning Towards Your Awakened HeartMind 57:34
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Our lives are shaped by our evolutionary past - the fears and wants that arise from a separate self sense - and the pull of our evolutionary potential - our awakened heart and mind. This talk explores the power of these pulls, and the teachings and reflections that make us most available and responsive to the calling of our future self.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Women's Retreat - The Heart of Buddhist Meditation
2016-08-24 Your Future Self - Turning Towards Your Awakened HeartMind 1:12:55
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Our lives are shaped by our evolutionary past - the fears and wants that arise from a separate self sense - and the pull of our evolutionary potential - our awakened heart and mind. This talk explores the power of these pulls, and the teachings and reflections that make us most available and responsive to the calling of our future self.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-08-17 How Hope Can Heal and Free Us – Part 2 1:15:23
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The mature expression of hope includes three elements: the aspiration for manifesting our full potential, a trust that this is possible, and an energy that engages to serve this unfolding. In this talk, we explore the importance of hope on the spiritual path, its shadow side, and how we can nourish hope through these three elements in a way that serves inner freedom and the healing of our world. Reflection: “When you’re feeling most alive and present, what’s going on? What are you doing? What do you love? Take a moment to take one thing that you know you really love – imagine it – sense yourself engaged in what you love. What’s going on inside you that makes this so precious? Sense who you are when you’re doing what you love. Know that this is another pathway to belonging – to your heart – to aliveness. This is a pathway to living with the sense of possibility in every moment.” ~ Tara
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-08-10 How Hope can Heal and Free Us – Part I 65:47
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The mature expression of hope includes three elements: the aspiration for manifesting our full potential, a trust that this is possible, and an energy that engages to serve this unfolding. In this talk, we explore the importance of hope on the spiritual path, its shadow side, and how we can nourish hope through these three elements in a way that serves inner freedom and the healing of our world. “We close with a simple prayer this evening, that all beings might remember the depth of their longing – that deep aspiration for love, for aliveness. That all beings may trust the heart and consciousness that’s always and already here. And that we may live from the depth and fullness of who we are.” ~ Tara
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-07-06 Stress and Everyday Nirvana – Part 2 1:11:13
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Our habitual view of stress is that it is a bad thing, an obstacle to healthy living and spiritual realization. These two talks look at how our way of relating to stress determines our happiness, and invites listeners to engage with practices that radically shift our response to stress and bring a healing and freeing evolution of consciousness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-06-29 Stress and Everyday Nirvana - Part 1 1:15:16
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Our habitual view of stress is that it is a bad thing, an obstacle to healthy living and spiritual realization. These two talks look at how our way of relating to stress determines our happiness, and invites listeners to engage with practices that radically shift our response to stress and bring a healing and freeing evolution of consciousness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-06-22 Reconnecting with our Lives - Healing from Dissociation 1:14:29
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Dissociation is the universal mechanism for pulling away from the pain of “too much.” While it’s necessary and natural for enduring certain situations, the ongoing habit of dissociation cuts us off from our full aliveness, creativity, and capacity for love. This talk explores the process by which we disconnect from our bodies and feelings - individually and collectively - and the practices that directly enable us to include the “unlived life" - the fear and shame, passion and loneliness - that we’ve pushed away. By including the raw energies we’ve been avoiding, we come home to a fullness that can embrace others and the whole of life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-06-01 Real but Not True: Freeing Ourselves from Harmful Beliefs 1:11:30
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Thoughts and beliefs are navigational maps that are not inherently true. Rather, some serve us and others cause feelings of separation, self-aversion and/or blame of others. We can free ourselves from harmful beliefs by investigating them with a dedicated, mindful and courage presence. This talk guides us in mindful investigation through an illustrative story, an outline of steps, and a guided meditation that addresses limiting beliefs surrounding interpersonal conflict.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-05-18 Happy for No Reason - Part 1 1:11:01
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These two talks explore the two different kinds of happiness, the blocks to happiness, and the ways that mindful presence and intentional gladdening the heart (positive neuroplasticity) can open us to our full potential for true happiness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-05-12 Meditation: Gladdening the Mind 18:04
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-11 Conscious Prayer - Finding Refuge in Loving Awareness 66:25
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Prayer is a communing with our enlarged being. This talk examines less conscious forms of prayer, and how we can evolve the power of our prayers by opening into the depth of our longing, and reaching toward our true belonging.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-11 Morning Question and Response 16:45
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-11 Meditation: Space of Awareness 35:22
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Awake awareness includes both the foreground of bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings and sounds, and the background of open, still presence. In this meditation we explore discovering interior space and aliveness, and the continuous space that all existence arises and passes in. Resting as a boundless sea of awareness, we are fully open to the changing waves of experience.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-09 Meditation: Guided Heart Forgiveness 28:50
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Tara gives brief instructions on the forgiveness practice, then guides us through a process of forgiveness of ourselves and others. “Forgiving is a movement of your heart not to carry aversive hatred or blame. That you can care about someone and still create boundaries… Each of you has this wisdom, heart, being place that intuits that there really isn’t freedom in the moments that you’re carrying blame and judgment.”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-09 Question and Response from Retreat 12:10
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Question and Response from Retreat ~ After morning meditation, Tara responds to questions on deepening our meditation practice, working with unpleasant and pleasant thoughts, and forgiveness from the IMCW 2016 Spring Residential Retreat.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-09 Meditation: Mystery of Aliveness 27:40
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-08 Fear as a Pathway to Loving Presence - Night Travelers 62:42
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Shifting our relationship with fear is central to the evolution of consciousness. Our suffering arises when our thoughts, feelings and sense of identity are shaped by fear. As we learn to attend to fear with mindfulness and care, we discover the vast tender presence that has room for the waves, and can fully cherish this life. Life’s waters flow from darkness. Search the darkness, don’t run from it. Night travelers are full of light, and you are too: don’t leave this companionship… The moon appears for night travelers, be watchful when the moon is full. - rumi
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-07 Meditation: Basic Body Scan and Breath Awareness 12:17
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- from the first morning of the IMCW 2016 Spring weeklong retreat, Tara offers a short introductory meditation with a body scan, bringing focus to the breath, sounds, then resting in awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2016 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2016-05-04 RAIN of Forgiveness 1:14:37
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The capacity to release the armoring of hatred and blame is intrinsic to our evolving consciousness. This talk explores the process of authentic forgiveness, and how we can use the mindfulness-based tool of RAIN to heal and free our hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-04-27 Listening with an Awake Heart 69:36
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True listening both nurtures and expresses evolving consciousness. This talk explores our ego-based conditioning to have an agenda or defendedness that prevents deep listening, and the strategies that evolve our capacity to listen fully to ourselves and others. When our listening is openhearted and full, it enables deep understanding and connectedness, and provides a transformative healing space for those who receive our listening attention.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-04-20 Love is Always Loving You 1:12:27
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Love is Always Loving You – This talk draws on Christian mystic Henri Nouwen’s book Return of the Prodigal Son. We explore the primary ways we leave home – leave presence, connection, beingness – and the pathways of deep attention and love that enable our return. The emphasis is on “letting in love” as a key and often missing element in practices that heal and free our hearts. Through the talk there are several reflections that lead to receiving the blessings of love and discovering that we are the source of that loving.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-04-13 Meditation - Vipassana - Practice of Seeing Clearly 18:38
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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 :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-04-13 Releasing Self-Blame - Pathways to a Forgiving Heart 53:44
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When we are stuck in blaming, disliking or hating ourselves, we are unable to love our world. This talk explores what underlies our addiction to self-blame and the teachings and practices that loosen aversive self-judgment and help us cultivate a forgiving heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-03-30 Embodied Awareness – Pain and Living Fully – Part 3 1:13:26
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The experiences we most value – feeling creative, loving, vital – require being awake in our bodies. Yet when faced with physical pain, our conditioning is to pull away from our bodies, and get lost in thoughts. This talk offers guidance in working mindfully with different levels of pain, as we cultivate our capacity to live from an embodied presence and open heart. After the talk, Tara offers a short period of question and response on embodiment.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-03-23 Embodied Awareness – Embracing Unlived Life – Part 2 1:11:23
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When we disconnect from the aliveness of our body, we are in a trance that prevents us from living and loving fully. These two talks examine our habits of dissociation – including the cutting off that comes from trauma – and the suffering of “unlived life” that this creates. We then look at how practices of mindfulness and compassion, guided by the acronym RAIN, enable us to re-enter our bodies, and discover the creativity, love and wisdom that naturally flow from embodied awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-03-09 Embodied Awareness- Embracing Unlived Life - Part 1 1:16:44
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When we disconnect from the aliveness of our body, we are in a trance that prevents us from living and loving fully. These two talks examine our habits of dissociation, and the suffering of “unlived life” that this creates. We then look at how practices of mindfulness and compassion, guided by the acronym RAIN, enable us to re-enter our bodies, and discover the creativity, love and wisdom that naturally flow from embodied awareness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-03-02 Bodhichitta — The Awakened Heart - Part 2 1:20:26
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While the brightness and warmth of our hearts is always here, like the sun when blocked by clouds, our intrinsic love can be obscured. These two talks explore how we become arrested in a confining story of separate self, and how remembering love releases us from this trance. The first talk emphasizes inner pathways of freeing our heart and the second talk explores awakening bodhichitta actively in relating with each other.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-02-24 Bodhichitta: The Awakened Heart - Part 1 1:29:22
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While the brightness and warmth of our hearts is always here, like the sun when blocked by clouds, our intrinsic love can be obscured. These two talks explore how we become arrested in a confining story of separate self, and how remembering love releases us from this trance. The first talk emphasizes inner pathways of freeing our heart and the second talk explores awakening bodhichitta actively in relating with each other.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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