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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.
2008-08-20 Behind The Mask 1:16:13
We each develop and become identified with masks that express a false or narrowed sense of self. Whether it's the helper mask or addict mask, the controller mask or loser mask, the beliefs and emotions creating the mask prevent us from realizing our natural wholeness and beauty. This talk explores how, in the face of inevitable change and loss, we can remember the presence and love that is peering through the mask.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-08-13 Let Everything Happen To You 1:16:40
The ways we try to control our life imprisons us in a contracted, fearful sense of self. Yet when we contemplate letting go of control, there is a sense that we will be endangered, that we will fail, that something will go wrong. This talk explores how, if we have the courage to "let everything happen" we discover a presence that is healing and freeing. As we learn to live from this allowing presence, our actions become naturally wholesome and wise.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-07-09 Three Attitudes That Awaken And Free Our Spirit 1:13:12
Our predicament is intuiting our true nature--love, awareness--and yet regularly contracting into the self-identity conditioned by wants and fears. This talk explores three essential and liberating ways of relating to our human conditioning: forgiving that it arises, interest in what is true, and regarding experience with friendliness and kindness.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-07-02 Conscious Activity 1:19:34
Most meditation guidance is aimed at formal sitting practice. Yet we spend much of our lives "doing" activities and often, in a way that lacks presence. This talk explores the practical ways that we can transform ego-based doing into activity that is aligned with our heart and expresses our natural creativity, joy and wisdom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-06-25 The Blessings Of Soul Recognition 1:20:37
Based on one of the great legends from the court of King Arthur, this talk examines the freedom that is possible when we can see past the veil of illusion and realize the true nature that shines through all beings.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-06-18 Planting Yourself In The Universe 1:13:44
One understanding of suffering is that as individuals and a culture we are uprooted, that we have disconnected from our natural world, our inner life and a sense of belonging with each other. Some flags are speediness and over consumption, anxiety and depression. This talk explores how we have become uprooted and the three gateways of rediscovering our natural wholeness, spontaneity and inner freedom.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-06-11 Question/Answer: Working With The Difficult Weather 1:19:31
In this talk Tara responds to questions from participants on how to bring a healing attention to anger, sleepiness, great loss and the wounds of our world. She grounds the teachings in the two wings of clear recognition (of what is happening) and an allowing presence, one that is full with compassion.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-05-28 My Religion Is Kindness 1:13:33
The expression of inner freedom is a kind heart. This talk explores how we armor our hearts, and the pathways of awakening our natural capacity for loving unconditionally. The session includes an experiential inquiry that helps reveal the ways we create separation, and the possibility of healing and freeing our heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-05-21 Vesak - Path Of Awakening 1:18:49
In the Buddhist tradition, the spring celebration of Vesak honors the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death. The archetypal theme that plays through these three events, and the core teaching of the Buddha, is that we each have the capacity to realize profound inner freedom, happiness and peace. We are no different than the Buddha, and our path is to realize the luminosity of our spirit.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks
2008-05-14 Golfing With Monkeys 1:10:36
The Buddha taught that in any moment that we have an argument with life, we suffer. This talk explores the ways we are conditioned to think life should be different, and how the natural arising of unpleasant experience becomes locked into suffering. An experiential reflection guides us in how to respond, rather than react, to life's challenges...inhabiting a wise heart.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC IMCW Wednesday Evening Talks

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