Donate  |   Contact


The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
 
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.
     1 2 3 4 ... 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
2010-12-29 The Path of Transformation 62:31
Download Listen
Awakening arises out of presence with the changing ground of our lives. This talk explores three key gateways to liberating presence: forgiveness, inner fire (aspiration) and a deep inquiry into the nature of our own mind.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2010 - IMCW New Year's Retreat - Awakening the Heart of Compassion
2010-12-15 Seeing Beyond the Veil 1:15:45
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The source of our suffering is that we become identified with egoic roles and defenses that separate us from the truth of what we are. This talk explores some of the constricting identities that we take on, and the process of compassionate presence that reconnects us with our natural vitality, openheartedness and wisdom. We then enlarge our focus to seeing past the veil that obscures the sacred presence that shines through all beings.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-12-08 Ask the Friend for Love 1:18:56
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Prayer, when cultivated consciously, energizes and guides us on the spiritual path. This talk investigates the difference between wanting, with it's narrow fixation, and the prayer that arises out of our deep heart's longing. We explore how living prayer, the prayer that arises from consciously inhabiting longing, can carry us home to loving presence. As John O'Donahue writes, prayer is the bridge between longing and belonging.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-24 Loving Life: Gratitude and Generosity 1:16:36
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Love is innate, and blossoms as we intentionally cultivate it. This talk on two natural expressions of loving life--gratitude and generosity--includes several guided reflections that awaken the heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-17 A Listening Presence - Three Domains of Training 1:15:43
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Cultivating the capacity for listening is essential to loving well and to realizing the truth of who we are. This talk focuses on three key facets of deep listening--non-distractedness, not-controlling and seeking to understand-- that can awaken an intimacy with our inner life and others. Guided meditations on listening precede and are included within the body of the talk.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-10 Releasing Karmic Patterns 1:20:15
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
We all have conditioned patterns of thinking and behaving that keep us identified as a separate, deficient self. This talk investigates the roots of this conditioning and ways that pausing and awakening mindfulness can free us to live from our inherent love and wisdom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-11-03 Part 4 - Living from Presence - Introductory Series 1:23:00
Download Listen
Our human potential is to express the wings of presence--mindfulness and lovingkindness--through all facets of daiy living. This talk explores the practices that enable us to both serve and savor this precious life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-10-27 Part 3 - Mindfulness of Thoughts - Introductory Series 1:14:00
Download Listen
The primary element in meditation is training to awaken from the trance of thoughts. This class explores two key ways that mindfulness supports this awakening. The first is using wise reflection to discern if thoughts are imprisoning us in fear or serving healing and freedom. The second is recognizing when we are in the virtual reality of thinking, and learning to "come back" to living presence. It is by inhabiting this non-conceptual presence that we have access to the love, wisdom and freedom that we cherish.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-10-20 Part 2 - Mindfulness of Emotions - Introductory Series 1:24:15
Download Listen
Our conditioning is to live in a reactive trance of either resisting or become possessed by strong emotions. This reactivity fuels a trance of being separate from others, and feeling defective and insecure. In this class we explore how to free ourselves from this suffering by bringing a mindful and kind awareness to the stories and feelings that make up our emotional life.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-10-13 Part 1 - The Art and Science of Meditation - Introductory Series 1:18:46
Download Listen
The first session defines meditation and describes the Buddhist teachings that give a context to the path of practice. We explore the two basic types of meditation--concentration and mindfulness--and then focus on the ground of mindfulness training: bringing mindful attention to the breath and bodily sensations. Guided meditations include setting intention and the sacred pause; learning to "come back" using an anchor of the breath; and "being here" with an embodied presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-10-06 The Awakened Heart 64:35
Download Listen
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2010 - IMCW Fall Residential Retreat: Intimacy with Life
2010-09-29 Loving the Earth 49:15
Download Listen
How is it possible that we humans have wreaked such havoc on this planet, on the web of life that we belong to? This talk explores the ways that egoic consciousness can lead to violating life, and how evolving consciousness can move us toward healing this earth.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-09-22 The Power of Mindful Investigation 1:21:45
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
We each have a deep interest in reality--in understanding what is true and who we are. In Buddhist teachings, our interest, and its expression in wise investigation, energize the path of awakening. This talk explores how mindful investigation can free us from emotional suffering, nourish loving relatedness and create the conditions for deep spiritual realization.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-09-15 Be All That You Are 1:20:16
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
We are conditioned to live in stories that obscure the vastness, goodness and mystery of what we are. This talk explores the ways we construct a limited self-identity and the pathways to realizing and living from a fullness of our Being.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-09-08 Equanimity 1:14:01
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Cultivating equanimity means awakening our capacity to meet the winds of life with a non-reactive, open, balanced presence. The gift of this presence is that we can see clearly what is happening within and around us, and respond with wisdom, creativity and compassion. This talk looks at our habits of reacting, and the ways we can come home to equinimity in the midst of life's challenges.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-09-01 Joy 1:21:49
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Joy is an innate capacity, one of the primary expressions of an awakened heart and mind. Yet because of our conditioned patterns of thought and emotion, this capacity for openness, happiness and full aliveness can be obscured. This talk guides us in how to nurture joy through a commited presence that unfolds into "loving what is."
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-08-25 Compassion - Responding to Suffering with Care 1:23:03
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Our capacity to respond to ourselves and our world with compassion is the essence of all healing and spiritual awakening. This talk explores the trance of separation that blocks our natural compassion, and includes guided practices that enable us to directly cultivate a compassionate heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-08-18 Metta - Lovingkindness 1:19:21
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
This talk explores what gets in the way of loving presence and the training that awakens and frees our hearts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-08-11 Blessings of a Forgiving Heart 1:18:19
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The roots of peace and war are within these very hearts. In the moments that we release blame, we reconnect with the compassionate presence that heals ourselves and others as well. This talk includes a meditation that guides us in awakening our capacity to forgive.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-08-04 Self-Forgiveness 56:19
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Holding ourselves with a compassionate, forgiving heart is the gateway to healing, and to intimacy with our world. This talk explores our deep conditioning to be at war with ourselves, and the insights and elements of forgiving that can carry us home to loving presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-07-28 Trusting Who We Are 1:17:55
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
If we investigate, we will find that much suffering arises out of mistrust--of ourselves, others and life. This talk explores the genesis of the great challenges of doubt and mistrust, and the pathway to trusting the goodness that is our essence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-07-21 Turning Towards What You Love 1:20:56
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
For many of us, the most apparent junctures of spiritual transformation are spurred on by challenging life situations. This talk looks at how our conscious aspiration for awakening, and our practice of mindful presence, can help us find peace, compassion and freedom when difficulties arise.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-07-07 The Power of Mind 1:22:03
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The Buddha taught that "Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind." This talk explores how our intention and attention can tap into the living awareness that is our source, and give rise to healing of body, heart and spirit.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-06-16 The Fires of Loss 60:52
Download Listen
We all encounter the great losses of our own health and life, and of cherished others. We are conditioned to resist opening to the rawness and grief that comes with loss. This talk describes the refuge of presence in the face of loss, and the gift of timeless love that arises as we make peace with the reality of this living, dying world.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-06-09 The Unreal Other 1:12:06
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
When we experience others through a conditioned lens of wants and fears, and of unexamined beliefs, we react in ways that cause distance and sometimes obvious injury. This talk explores how we create separation from others, and the ways we can awaken from this trance and live from genuine empathy and wisdom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-06-02 Relating Wisely with Fear - Part 2 1:21:33
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Relating Wisely with Fear Part 1 and 2 - While fear is essential to survival, it can also strangle our capacity to live fully and awaken spiritually. These two talks explore how fear takes over our lives, and the ways we can train our attention to free ourselves from its grip.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-05-26 Relating Wisely with Fear - Part 1 1:24:16
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Relating Wisely with Fear Part 1 and 2 - While fear is essential to survival, it can also strangle our capacity to live fully and awaken spiritually. These two talks explore how fear takes over our lives, and the ways we can train our attention to free ourselves from its grip.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-05-19 Desire and Spiritual Freedom 1:18:31
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The Buddha taught that becoming identified with "wanting mind" obscures our true nature and binds us in suffering. This talk explores a wise attitude in relating to desire, and offers three pathways towards freedom: Mindfulness of "wanting mind," trancing back desire to its source, and radical non-clinging.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-05-12 Relating Wisely to "Wanting Mind" 1:20:19
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
While desire is intrinsic to life, it can contract into the craving that traps us in suffering. This talk explores how we seek happiness yet become habituated to false refuges--substitutes like over- consuming food, dependent relationships, approval, achieving--that can never bring happiness. Our freedom becomes possible when we forgive the ways we get hooked, and offer a deep, mindful attention to the energies of craving and clinging.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-05-02 Self-Compassion 61:52
Download Listen
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2010 - IMCW Spring Residential Retreat: Intimacy With Life
2010-05-02 Meditation with Instruction 28:01
Download Listen
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  2010 - IMCW Spring Residential Retreat: Intimacy With Life
2010-04-28 Embodied Spirit 1:12:55
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The Buddha taught that mindfulness of the body is a direct path to the realization of truth, to peace and freedom. This talk explores how we leave a present-centered awareness of our body, and the pathways of homecoming.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-04-21 True Belonging - Refuge in Presence and Relatedness 1:23:31
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
We become homesick when our insecurity compels us to find refuge in exclusive affiliations, in over-consuming, in avoiding intimacy or grasping tightly to the approval of others. This talk explores how we come home to the truth of who we are by connecting with our moment to moment experience, and by developing the capacity to be wakeful, giving and receptive in loving relationship.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-04-07 Beyond Small Self 1:15:42
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
While we are conditioned to become identified with limited sense of self, we have the capacity to recognize and open to who we are beyond the self. This talk investigates our most compelling domains of getting identified, and the ways a purposeful presence can awaken us.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-03-31 Meditation and Healing Trauma 1:13:22
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Spiritual awakening often involves offering a healing presence to the suffering of post traumatic stress or deep emotional wounding. This talk explores the three key elements that support this process: self-forgiveness, accessing a source of love and safety, and bringing a kind attention to the unlived life in the body.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-03-24 The Blessings of Deep Listening 1:13:01
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Our capacity to listen deeply--to our inner life and each other--is the grounds of true understanding and love. This talk explores the challenges to listening and guidelines and practices that awaken a listening heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-03-17 Realizing Your True Nature - Four Reflections 1:19:43
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
This talk explores a Tibetan teaching through reflection and guided meditations: Our true nature--our inherent wakefuness, openness and love--is closer than we can imagine; it is more profound than we can imagine; it is easier than we can imagine; and it is more wondrous than we can imagine.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-03-03 Trusting Your Basic Goodness 1:12:58
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
When we don't trust who we are, we are unable to be at home in our world. This talk explores how we come to be at war with ourselves and the pathway to realizing our basic goodness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-02-24 Living Aligned with the Heart 1:13:21
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
We suffer when our words or actions arise from unconscious wants and fears. This talk explores how we can awaken from the habitual ways we cause harm to ourselves and others, and live from our natural intelligence and tender warmth.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-02-03 Deepening Practice 1:27:12
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
This talk and question/answer format addresses the attitudes and practices that cultivate our natural wisdom and compassion.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-01-27 Presence and Aliveness I & II 1:11:54
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
These two talks explore how we leave our bodies, the challenge of working with pain, the pathway home to embodied awareness, and the gifts of presence and aliveness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-01-20 Presence and Aliveness I & II 1:10:34
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
These two talks explore how we leave our bodies, the challenge of working with pain, the pathway home to embodied awareness, and the gifts of presence and aliveness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-01-13 Awakening to the Sacred 65:03
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The tendency to think "life should be different" and to try to control experience removes us from the wisdom and compassion that naturally gives rise to healing and transformation. We learn to trust the power of our heart and awareness by meeting both the pain and beauty of this life with sacred presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2010-01-06 Taking Refuge 1:16:49
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
The Buddha taught of three archetypal domains in which we awaken presence and realize freedom. In contrast to our habitual false refuges, these gateways of true refuge are dependable because they express the timeless truth of what we are. This talk shines a light on false refuges, guides us in exploring the meaning of each of the three Buddhist refuges and ends in a ritual of "taking refuge."
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2009-12-16 Awakening from the Trance of Separation 1:15:04
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
This talk explores both our perception and feelings of separation, and the capacity, through a wise attention, to move from judgment and reactivity to the full flowering of love.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2009-12-09 Longing to Belong 1:20:06
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Spiritual practice reveals our belonging through bringing presence to three gateways: the aliveness of the present moment, loving relatedness, and the openness and lucidity of awareness itself. This talk includes guided meditations in exploring each gateway.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2009-11-25 Gratitude and Generosity 1:16:09
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
While we value gratitude and generosity, our daily life can often have an undercurrent of complaint and an anxious kind of self-centeredness. This Thanksgiving Eve talk explores teachings and practices that reconnect us with the sense of wonder and abundance that characterizes our own awakened heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2009-11-18 Refuge in Loving Presence 1:19:15
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
There are times when there is so much fear and reactivity, that the first step in moving toward freedom is to connect with some sense of safety and love. This talk explores how an inner pathway to loving presence can support us in facing and awakening through traumatic wounding.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2009-11-11 Choosing Presence 1:19:21
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Spiritual awakening is energized by conscious intention. This talk explores how we get waylaid by habitual wants and fears, and the ways we can connect with the power and purity of our deep aspiration for love, truth and freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2009-11-04 Intimacy with Life 1:24:03
Listen to tracks Show 2 Tracks
Zen mast Dogen taught that "...to study the Buddhist way is to be Intimate with all Things." This talk reviews the often unconscious ways that we habitually block intimacy and two trainings of attention that foster a natural sense of belonging to this living world and to timeless presence.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC :  IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

     1 2 3 4 ... 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Creative Commons License Content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Dharma Seed is a 501(c)(3) Non-profit organization. email: contact@dharmaseed.org