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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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2016-02-17 The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening - Part 2 1:11:55
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In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience. These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult “stuck” places, how inquiry enables us to become more intimate and understanding of others, and in the deepest way, how inquiry can reveal the deepest truth of what we are…our true nature. The talks include several guided reflections that can enrich your meditation practice and serve spiritual awakening.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-02-10 The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening - Part 1 1:13:28
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In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience. These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult “stuck” places, how inquiry enables us to become more intimate and understanding of others, and in the deepest way, how inquiry can reveal the deepest truth of what we are…our true nature. The talks include several guided reflections that can enrich your meditation practice and serve spiritual awakening. "True inquiry doesn't land on an answer. It opens to a mystery that's meant to be lived."
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-02-03 Three Attitudes that Nourish a Liberating Practice 1:18:16
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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.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2016-01-06 Gateways of Remembrance: The Three Refuges 1:17:40
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This talk explores the traditional refuges of awareness (buddha nature), truth (dharma) and love (sangha) that are at the heart of Buddhism, and found in many spiritual and religious traditions. It includes a look at our false refuges - strategies that seek to comfort and gratify, but are temporary fixes - and moves into reflections that help us remember, trust and live from our true nature. (Concludes with a ceremony tying red cords in remembrance of the refuges.)
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-12-31 Widening the Circles of Compassion 68:44
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The archetypal figure of the Bodhisattva (“awakening being”) reflects our potential to realize our connectedness with all beings, and care for this living world with an open tender heart. This talk explores the four types of patterning that keep us stuck in the pain of separation and the key heart practices that evolve us on the bodhisattva path. "Compassion arises when you see the truth behind the veils."
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2015-12-29 Heart Meditation: The RAIN of Compassion 35:04
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This new version of the acronym RAIN is a powerful way of bringing compassion to the life within you, and to attuning and deepening compassion for others.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW New Year Retreat: Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2015-12-23 Secret Beauty - Solstice Talk 65:07
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This solstice talk explores two pathways to realizing the Secret Beauty that is our essence. One is through the compassion that arises when we stay with vulnerability and suffering, and the other is through love that arises as we learn to see the goodness that shines through all beings.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-12-16 The RAIN of Self-Compassion 1:17:51
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This talk explores three key features of the trance of unworthiness and introduces a guided meditation based on a new version of the acronym RAIN that awakens self-compassion and de-conditions the suffering of being at war with ourselves. Please visit www.tarabrach.com/selfcompassion/ for a written description of the new version of the RAIN practice.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-12-09 Desire: A Current of Homecoming 1:13:53
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Desire is intrinsic to our aliveness, yet when we have unmet needs, it can possess us. This talk explores how to relax open the grip of wanting and heal the suffering of addiction. You will learn how to bring mindfulness and compassion to the roots of desire, and be carried home to open loving presence. “Recovery is also about spirit – about dealing with that ‘hole in the soul’ … so how does this hole get filled and become holy space?”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-11-25 Feeling Gratitude, Giving Love - Thanksgiving 2015 1:20:09
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Like breathing in and breathing out, gratitude and generosity allow us to live fully. This talks explores what blocks these natural capacities, and three pathways of nourishing a grateful and giving heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-11-18 Part 2: Awakening through Anger - The U-Turn to Freedom 53:36
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While we have strong conditioning to react to aggression with more aggression, we have the capacity to pause, and instead deepen attention and connect to our natural wisdom and empathy. This talk looks at how we can directly engage in this evolutionary adaptation when we encounter trauma related conflict in our personal lives, and in a parallel way when groups of people who have been part of traumatizing conflict seek reconciliation and healing.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-11-11 Part 1: Awakening through Anger - The U-Turn to Freedom 1:23:20
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Anger is naturally triggered when we feel an obstacle to meeting our needs. How do we honor the intelligence within anger, but not get hijacked into emotional reactivity that creates suffering in our individual and collective lives? This talk explores the U-turn that enables us to offer a healing attention to the feelings and unmet needs under anger. Once present with our inner life, we are able to respond to those around us with wisdom, empathy and true strength.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-11-04 Compass of Our Heart 50:26
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All of our actions, our entire life experience, arises from the energy of intention. While it’s natural that our intentions are shaped by egoic wants and fears, when we bring this into conscious, compassionate awareness, we can discover the deep aspiration that guides and energizes our awakening hearts and minds. This talk explores the movement from egoic intention to liberating intention…the movement from “my will” to “my hearts will."
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-10-21 Awakening Beyond Self 1:25:45
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Suffering is our call to deepen attention and discover the truth of who we are beyond the identity of a separate, deficient self. This talk examines how thoughts, beliefs and emotions keep us trapped in a confining identity, and two pathways of practice that serve awakening and freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-10-15 Meditation: Radiant Empty Heart 38:01
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Fall Retreat - Intimacy with Life
2015-10-12 Heart Meditation: Loving Presence 33:54
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Lovingkindness (Metta) meditation begins with a smile meditation, then proceeds with calling on loving presence with someone easy to love, then self, others and extending out to the world.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Fall Retreat - Intimacy with Life
2015-10-11 Freeing Ourselves by Loving Ourselves 64:36
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In this human realm, healing and spiritual realization are rooted in awakening a love for the life that is here. This talk looks at our habit of feeling we should be different than we are, and the ways that mindfulness and self-compassion help enable us to not only embrace our inner life, but bring genuine healing to others.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Fall Retreat - Intimacy with Life
2015-10-10 Morning Instruction and Question/Response 10:05
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Fall Retreat - Intimacy with Life
2015-10-10 Morning Instruction and Meditation 30:00
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Fall Retreat - Intimacy with Life
2015-10-10 10-Minute Basic Guided Meditation 10:30
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Fall Retreat - Intimacy with Life
2015-10-07 Trusting Ourselves, Trusting Life 1:12:33
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How can we trust in basic goodness when we encounter so much greed and violence within and around us? This talk explores three pathways of practice that enable us to bring a healing attention to our primitive survival conditioning, and cultivate the heart and awareness that express our full potential and deepest essence. "Who would you be if you trusted the basic goodness and beauty that lives through you?"
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-09-30 The Sacred Pause 1:10:09
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When we are lost in the trance of doing, our lives are on automatic, and contracted by sense that something’s wrong or missing. This talk explores the challenges of learning to pause, and the blessings that arise when step out of our incessant mental and physical activity and reconnect with the being-qualities of presence, wisdom and love.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-09-09 Releasing Limiting Beliefs 1:11:49
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If we investigate patterns of emotional suffering or “stuckness,” we’ll discover that under our pain is a fear based belief. Until these beliefs are brought into the light of compassionate awareness, they control and confine our lives. This talk reviews key steps of inquiry and mindfulness that help us realize the freedom that comes with awakening from the grip of beliefs.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-09-05 Heart Meditation: Letting go of Judgment 18:10
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Labor Day Weekend Retreat
2015-09-05 Letting Go of Judgment (retreat talk) 53:14
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The scales of judgment confine us in a limited sense of self, they restrict the depth and fullness of our loving. This talk explores the genesis of projecting badness on to parts of ourselves and others, and how we can use mindfulness and self-compassion practices to evolve our consciousness and free our hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Labor Day Weekend Retreat
2015-09-02 Learning to Respond, Not React 1:19:00
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When stressed, we often react with looping fear-thoughts, feelings and behaviors that cause harm to ourselves and/or others. This talk offers three interrelated strategies that can serve us when we’re triggered by stress, and help us find our way back to our natural wisdom, empathy and wholeness of being. By de-conditioning habitual reactivity, we are increasingly able to respond to our life circumstances in ways that serve healing and awakening.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-08-26 Awakening from Trance - Embracing Unlived Life 1:15:02
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When physical or emotional pain is too much, our conditioning is to pull away and avoid direct contact with raw feelings. The result is a trance - we are split off from the wholeness of our aliveness, intelligence and capacity to love. This talk explores how this dissociation shows up in our lives and a powerful way that mindfulness enables us to integrate cut-off parts of our being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-08-19 Transforming Two Fears: FOF and FOMO 1:13:31
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There are two common fears that 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. Note: This talk is dedicated to Tim Ferriss, who turned me on to the phrase FOMO. Tim exemplifies the creative aliveness of FOMO energy when it’s living through someone who’s dedicated to being awake, caring and real. (check out his podcasts, http://fourhourworkweek.com/podcast/)
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-08-12 Radical Acceptance Revisited 1:15:27
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One of the truths we most regularly forget is that if we are at war with ourselves, we can’ t feel love and connection with our world.  This talk looks at the genesis of the “Trance of Unworthiness” and how the wings of mindfulness and heartfulness can dissolve the trance and reveal the loving awareness that is our essence Being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-08-05 The Sacred Art of Listening 68:42
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Deep listening - the kind of listening that brings intimacy and understanding - takes intentional practice. This talk looks at the societal and inner obstacles to an undistracted presence, and the mindfulness strategies that nourish our capacity to listen in a way that heals and connects.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-07-29 The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Working with Attachment and Addiction 49:13
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In Buddhist cosmology the torment of intense desire that can never really be satisfied is depicted as the realm of Hungry Ghosts. This talk explores the attachments and addictions that so many of us struggle with, and the teachings and practices that can liberate us.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-07-22 That Bird Got My Wings 1:17:46
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This talk looks at how we are imprisoned by a limited sense of who we are, and how the wings of mindfulness and heartfulness enable us to realize the spirit that is our essence. We then look at how we can bring the wings of freedom to our engagement with others. The talk’s title is the name of a book written by Jarvis Masters, a deeply wise and inspiring African American man currently on death row at San Quentin prison.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-07-08 The Dance with Pain 1:15:38
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“Pain is inevitable and suffering is optional.” In this talk Tara explores the difference between pain and suffering and examines the most common, yet often unconscious, ways we resist pain. She then shares practices that help us find balance, equanimity and awakening in the midst.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-07-01 Part 2: Devotional Practices 1:18:28
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The sacred feminine expresses the realization of our belonging, our innate interdependence with all of life. These two classes explores inner practices that help us open to our longing to belong, and awaken the power of prayer.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-06-27 Heart Meditation: Three Domains of Forgiveness 34:13
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Instruction and guided meditation on the three domains of forgiveness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Women's Retreat - The Heart of Buddhist Meditation
2015-06-26 Unfolding of the Sacred Feminine (retreat talk) 60:01
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The sacred feminine expresses the qualities of heart that emerge as we open beyond identifying with the egoic, separate self. In this talk, Tara tracks a series of challenging experiences in her own life that catalized an awakening of heart, and explores how for each of us, the places of difficulty can help us realize our belonging to life and the loving awareness that is our true essence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Women's Retreat - The Heart of Buddhist Meditation
2015-06-26 "Coming Back" - Meditation Instructions with Q and A 13:27
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A special recording from the first morning of the 2015 IMCW Women's Retreat that offers further guidance and addresses some frequently asked questions about meditation.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Women's Retreat - The Heart of Buddhist Meditation
2015-06-24 Part 1: Devotional Practices 37:55
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The sacred feminine expresses the realization of our belonging, our innate interdependence with all of life. These two classes explores inner practices that help us open to our longing to belong, and awaken the power of prayer.  
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-06-17 Beloved Community 1:20:27
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Martin Luther King’s term, “Beloved Community,” points to our potential for living together with love, justice and respect. This talk explores the often hidden expressions of racism that fuel separation and violence, and pathways toward healing and freeing our collective hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-06-10 Part 2: Beyond the Fear Body 1:15:44
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A central part of spiritual awakening is recognizing and befriending fear, and in the tender intensity of fear, discovering the awakened heart. In these two talks we explore the suffering of becoming identified with the fear body, and the skillful means that enable a full and liberating presence with fear.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-06-03 Part 1: Beyond the Fear Body 1:17:59
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A central part of spiritual awakening is recognizing and befriending fear, and in the tender intensity of fear, discovering the awakened heart. In these two talks we explore the suffering of becoming identified with the fear body, and the skillful means that enable a full and liberating presence with fear.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-05-27 The Two Wings of Awareness 1:20:05
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The two wings of understanding and love awaken as we learn to recognize what is here in the present moment, and to allow experience to be just as it is. This talk includes a guided reflection and a brief period of questions and responses.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-05-20 Part 2: Impermanence - Awakening Through Insecurity 1:18:57
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From the view of the separate self, this existence is inherently uncertain, and we are profoundly vulnerable. Our habitual reaction to insecurity fuels separation, and limits our capacity to live and love fully. These two talks explore the blessings of wisdom, love and freedom that naturally arise as, instead of resisting, we learn to open directly to the insecurity of impermanence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-05-13 Part 1: Impermanence - Awakening Through Insecurity 1:21:28
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From the view of the separate self, this existence is inherently uncertain, and we are profoundly vulnerable. Our habitual reaction to insecurity fuels separation, and limits our capacity to live and love fully. These two talks explore the blessings of wisdom, love and freedom that naturally arise as, instead of resisting, we learn to open directly to the insecurity of impermanence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-05-04 Forgiveness 42:56
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center :  Sacred Tenderness: Exploring the Energies of Our Hearts
2015-04-29 Investigating Reality - Beyond an Interpreted World 55:05
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The skillful use of inquiry - asking questions in a way that energizes and focuses our attention - brings what is hidden into the light of awareness. This talk explores the healing that arises as we investigate the unseen, unfelt parts of our psyche, and the freedom discovered as we look into the very essence of who we are.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2015-04-23 Namaste - Seeing the Sacred that Lives through all Beings 68:02
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The trance of separation is part of our evolutionary heritage, but not the end of the story. This talk explores how several key trainings of the heart can evolve and awaken our capacity to realize connectedness, and the sacredness that shines through this living world.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2015-04-22 Meditation - Letting Life Be, Just As It Is 27:46
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2015-04-20 Loving Yourself into Freedom 61:00
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The most basic truths we forget, and one is this - if we don't love ourselves, we can't love life.  In the most basic way, attending to and embracing our inner life reveals the nature of reality. This talk looks at the genesis of self-aversions and several pathways that open us to the loving presence that is our source.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2015-04-20 Meditation - Vipassana with Instruction 27:39
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Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2015 IMCW Spring Retreat: Intimacy with Life

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