Tara Brach
1,364 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 days ago - ★★★★★ - 9.3K ratingsTara Brach, Ph.D is an internationally known meditation teacher and author of bestselling Radical Acceptance and True Refuge. Tara shares a weekly guided meditation and talk that blend Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices. The podcast addresses the value of mindfulness meditation and self-compassion in relieving emotional suffering, serving spiritual awakening and bringing healing to our world.
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Episodes
The Calling of These Times - Part 2
November 17, 2022 16:55 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBThe Calling of These Times - Part 2 - The Dalai Lama invites us to trust in the power of heart and awareness to awake through all circumstances. What does that look like in the midst of our current global crises? These two talks explore what these times are drawing forward in us individually and collectively, and how we can live true to the full wisdom and love of our beings.
Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart
November 17, 2022 02:24 - 23 minutes - 16.2 MBMeditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart - In the midst of difficulty we need access to our deepest wisdom and love. This guided meditation calls forth this loving presence by opening to the heart and spirit of whatever being in our life we most experience as calm, wise and compassionate.
The Calling of These Times - Part 1
November 10, 2022 19:48 - 45 minutes - 31.3 MBThe Calling of These Times - Part 1 - The Dalai Lama invites us to trust in the power of heart and awareness to awake through all circumstances. What does that look like in the midst of our current global crises? These two talks explore what these times are drawing forward in us individually and collectively, and how we can live true to the full wisdom and love of our beings.
Meditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves
November 10, 2022 02:12 - 23 minutes - 16.4 MBMeditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves - 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 (from the 2018 IMCW New Year’s Retreat). It’s especially enjoyed when the mind is a bit quieter. You might reflect on these words from the Tibetan tradition: Utterly awake, senses ...
Three Practices for Nurturing Wise Hope
November 03, 2022 18:45 - 50 minutes - 34.4 MBThree Practices for Nurturing Wise Hope - Wise or spiritual hope includes the aspiration to manifest our full potential, individually and collectively, and the trust that this is possible. This talk explores how, especially in stressful times, this hope gets clouded over by fear; and how when it is alive, wise hope energizes and guides all spiritual transformation. We look at three practices - 3 A’s - that help us nurture hope: Aspiration for what we love, Attending to what we love, and Acti...
Meditation: Befriending Our Experience
November 03, 2022 00:32 - 22 minutes - 15.5 MBMeditation: Befriending Our Experience - We begin the meditation with a sense of befriending our experience - with an intention towards gentleness and kindness as the attention goes inward. We scan the body, opening to sounds and the senses, resting in the awareness that includes this changing life. When the mind drifts, as it naturally does, we notice, then relax back into a receptive, listening presence. There’s nothing to do, simply letting life be as it is. Resting in the freedom of awak...
Cultivating Inner Strength – A Conversation with Tara Brach and Lori Deschene
October 27, 2022 18:33 - 59 minutes - 41 MBCultivating Inner Strength – A Conversation with Tara Brach and Lori Deschene - What gives us the inner strength to meet life’s challenges with resilience, heart and wisdom? Drawing on themes in Lori’s new book, "The Tiny Buddha’s Inner Strength Journal," Tara and Lori explore the mindset that is conducive to growth, working with negative beliefs, ways of transforming fear, and what it means to have inner strength in facing loss and death. We also talk about what can most empower and energ...
Beyond the Controlling Self - Part 2
October 20, 2022 20:58 - 51 minutes - 35 MBBeyond the Controlling Self - Part 2 - 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-contro...
Meditation: Letting Life Be
October 20, 2022 00:15 - 23 minutes - 16 MBMeditation: Letting Life Be - This meditation establishes an atmosphere of loving kindness with the “smile”; relaxes and awakens through the body; and guides us into a spacious presence. We then rest in that presence, letting go of any controlling, and simply allow life to be as it is. It’s in “letting be” that we come home to the luminosity and tenderness of natural awareness. We close with a verse from Mary Oliver…
Beyond the Controlling Self - Part 1
October 13, 2022 19:17 - 53 minutes - 36.4 MBBeyond the Controlling Self - Part 1 - 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-control...
Meditation: Letting Go into Living Presence
October 13, 2022 00:14 - 18 minutes - 12.8 MBMeditation: Letting Go into Living Presence - 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.
The Liberating Power of Conscious Intention – Part 2
October 06, 2022 18:22 - 50 minutes - 34.5 MBThe Liberating Power of Conscious Intention – Part 2 - While we can’t change our past, we have the capacity in this moment to remember our deepest intention and seed the future. Intention can become the compass of our heart, guiding and creating our life experience. In these two talks we explore how we awaken mindfulness of intention and how, when we are caught in habits that create suffering, we can find our way home to the deep intention that heals and frees us. These two talks include ref...
Meditation: Resting in the Center of Now
October 06, 2022 00:07 - 16 minutes - 11.3 MBMeditation: Resting in the Center of Now - This meditation awakens our senses and then guides us to rest in the changing flow of experience. When the mind drifts, we are invited to relax back into full living presence, into that Beingness that is the center of now.
The Liberating Power of Conscious Intention – Part 1
September 29, 2022 19:35 - 54 minutes - 37.4 MBThe Liberating Power of Conscious Intention – Part 1 - While we can’t change our past, we have the capacity in this moment to remember our deepest intention and seed the future. Intention can become the compass of our heart, guiding and creating our life experience. In these two talks we explore how we awaken mindfulness of intention and how, when we are caught in habits that create suffering, we can find our way home to the deep intention that heals and frees us. These two talks include ref...
Meditation: Calling on Your Future Self
September 29, 2022 00:40 - 14 minutes - 9.94 MBMeditation: Calling on Your Future Self - We have within us the wisdom and compassion that can carry us through the most challenging times. This meditation guides us in accessing these inner resources by calling on the most evolved part of our being.
Radical Acceptance - Our Gateway to Love and Freedom
September 22, 2022 19:48 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBRadical Acceptance - Our Gateway to Love and Freedom - Our capacity to realize the truth of who we are and to love fully, arises from moments of true acceptance. This means meeting our unfolding life with an unconditional, open and tender presence. This talk on Radical Acceptance explores how the trance of unworthiness contracts us away from presence, and how activating mindfulness and self-compassion with RAIN loosens the grip of self-aversion and awakens our hearts.
Meditation: Saying “Yes” to Reality
September 22, 2022 00:35 - 19 minutes - 13.1 MBMeditation: Saying “Yes” to Reality - 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.
Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 2
September 15, 2022 20:30 - 57 minutes - 39.2 MBNavigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 2 - 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 y...
Navigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 1
September 08, 2022 18:33 - 54 minutes - 37.5 MBNavigating Conflict with a Wise Heart – Part 1 - 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 y...
Meditation: Resting in a Sea of Presence
September 08, 2022 01:09 - 20 minutes - 14.3 MBMeditation: Resting in a Sea of Presence - 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.
Concern for All Beings: Plant-Based Eating
September 06, 2022 19:19 - 58 minutes - 39.9 MBConcern for All Beings: Plant-Based Eating – A conversation with Tara Brach and Tricycle‘s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen - A vegetarian diet, while encouraged in most schools of Buddhism, isn’t a requirement of the Buddhist path. But there are powerful spiritual opportunities in embracing a plant-based diet. Following a vegetarian or plant-based diet is one way to practice compassion, reduce harm, and recognize our interconnectedness with all living beings and the earth itself. So what do...
Survival of the Nurtured – Our Path to Belonging
September 01, 2022 19:07 - 54 minutes - 37.7 MBSurvival of the Nurtured – Our Path to Belonging - 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. “We are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured.” Louis Cozolino
Meditation: The Presence Beyond Thoughts
September 01, 2022 01:02 - 17 minutes - 12.1 MBMeditation: The Presence Beyond Thoughts - 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.
Awakening through Difficult Emotions
August 25, 2022 17:37 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBAwakening through Difficult Emotions: "The Poison is the Medicine" - Most of us know the pain of getting stuck in fear, anxiety, anger or shame. This exploration looks at how the emotion that takes over, when we attend with mindfulness and care, can become a place of deep transformation and freedom. Included in the talk is a guided RAIN meditation.
Meditation: Breath by Breath
August 25, 2022 01:15 - 22 minutes - 15.5 MBMeditation: Breath by Breath - Our breath can be a home base that allows us to meet life with a relaxed, wakeful presence. This meditation helps us calm and settle the mind with long deep breathing, and then establishes a mindful presence with our natural breathing. When distracted, we learn to relax back again and again, learning the pathway of homecoming to the aliveness, openness and mystery that is always Here.
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 3: A Mirror
August 18, 2022 20:10 - 56 minutes - 38.9 MBThree Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 3: A Mirror - This 3-part series explores three capacities we all have, that when cultivated, bring spiritual awakening and serve the healing of our world. Drawing on an ancient teaching story from India, we explore together the power of a forgiving heart, the inner fire that expresses as courage and dedication, and the inquiry of “who am I” that reveals our deepest nature.
Meditation: Listening to Life
August 18, 2022 01:02 - 18 minutes - 12.7 MBMeditation: Listening to Life - 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.
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 2: Inner Fire
August 11, 2022 19:01 - 46 minutes - 32 MBThree Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 2: Inner Fire - This 3- part series explores three capacities we all have, that when cultivated, bring spiritual awakening and serve the healing of our world. Drawing on an ancient teaching story from India, we explore together the power of a forgiving heart, the inner fire that expresses as courage and dedication, and the inquiry of “who am I” that reveals our deepest nature.
Meditation: Open Awareness – Relaxing Back into Presence
August 11, 2022 00:56 - 19 minutes - 13.1 MBMeditation: Open Awareness – Relaxing Back into Presence - This practice brings attention to the continuous space within and around the body, and the aliveness of sound, sensation and feeling that lives through us. While it’s natural for attention to get distracted, the pathway home is a relaxing back into the awake space that is aware of this changing life.
Meditation: Open Awareness – Relaxing Back into Presence
August 11, 2022 00:56 - 19 minutes - 13.1 MBMeditation: Open Awareness – Relaxing Back into Presence - This practice brings attention to the continuous space within and around the body, and the aliveness of sound, sensation and feeling that lives through us. While it’s natural for attention to get distracted, the pathway home is a relaxing back into the awake space that is aware of this changing life.
Three Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 1: Forgiveness
August 04, 2022 18:58 - 49 minutes - 34.3 MBThree Blessings in Spiritual Life – Part 1: Forgiveness - This 3-part series explores three capacities we all have, that when cultivated, bring spiritual awakening and serve the healing of our world. Drawing on an ancient teaching story from India, we explore together the power of a forgiving heart, the inner fire that expresses as courage and dedication, and the inquiry of “who am I” that reveals our deepest nature.
Meditation: Living Presence
August 04, 2022 00:59 - 19 minutes - 13.7 MBMeditation: Living Presence - The pathway to experiencing full aliveness and openheartedness is by awakening awareness throughout the body. This meditation begins by establishing a rhythmic inflow and outflow of the breath, in order to calm and collect the mind. Then continuing with the conscious breathing, we are guided through the body – bringing attention to sensations and space. This attention becomes a very vibrant living presence, and we end by experiencing that living presence as a na...
Awakening from the Landlocked Self
July 28, 2022 18:45 - 53 minutes - 36.4 MBAwakening from the Landlocked Self - The Buddha taught that our suffering arises from forgetting who we are. This talk explores the trance of identifying as Somebody, and the compassionate witnessing that allows us to discover the freedom of our natural being.
Awakening from the Landlocked Self
July 28, 2022 18:45 - 53 minutes - 36.4 MBAwakening from the Landlocked Self - The Buddha taught that our suffering arises from forgetting who we are. This talk explores the trance of identifying as Somebody, and the compassionate witnessing that allows us to discover the freedom of our natural being.
Meditation: Befriending and Opening to Life
July 28, 2022 02:02 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBMeditation: Befriending and Opening to Life - This meditation establishes a gentle and caring presence through bringing the image and felt sense of a smile to various domains in the body. We deepen the intention to befriend and relax with whatever arises moment-to-moment, letting life be just as it is. We offer a brief lovingkindness reflection, sensing our heart and mind, and offering whatever wish most resonates right now to ourselves and others.
2022-07-20 - Homecoming to Your True Nature
July 21, 2022 20:00 - 1 hour - 41.6 MB2022-07-20 - Homecoming to Your True Nature: Awakening beyond the separate, fearful self - Most of us unconsciously identify as a separate, threatened, deficient self. This talk shines a light on this conditioning and explores the ways that mindfulness, compassion and self-inquiry reveal the freedom of our true nature.
Meditation: The Breath – Portal to Presence
July 21, 2022 01:29 - 15 minutes - 10.7 MBMeditation: The Breath – Portal to Presence - The meditation begins with breathing mindfully to collect and calm the body and mind. Then the attention opens to include the changing flow in a spacious natural presence.
From Dragons to Schmoos – Meeting Life with Compassionate Presence
July 14, 2022 18:45 - 55 minutes - 37.8 MBFrom Dragons to Schmoos – Meeting Life with Compassionate Presence - The trance of unworthiness is sustained by our aversion to the dragons – the difficult emotions and related behaviors that are a deeply conditioned part of the human experience. In this talk we explore the awakening that is possible as we recognize our reactive patterns and instead of judgment, offer a loving and healing presence (a favorite from the archives).
Meditation: Resting in Wakeful Presence
July 14, 2022 01:27 - 19 minutes - 13.2 MBMeditation: Resting in Wakeful Presence - This meditation scans through the body - arriving in the foreground with sounds, feelings and sensations, like the surface waves of the sea coming and going. And in the background, experiencing an alert inner stillness – a vast presence from which all activity pours forth.
The Path of Spiritual Surrender: Part 2
July 02, 2022 15:59 - 49 minutes - 33.7 MBThe Path of Spiritual Surrender: Part 2 - Cultivating a surrendering presence allows us to release the identity of a small, separate self, and open to the truth and fullness of who we are. These two talks explore misunderstandings about surrender (such as the fear that we will become passive or condone injustice) and the practices that create the grounds for surrender, emotional healing, transformational activism and spiritual freedom.
Meditation: Letting Go
June 29, 2022 23:56 - 20 minutes - 14.3 MBMeditation: Letting Go - One way of understanding meditation is a letting go of the habitual clenching of thoughts, the clenching that resists emotions and pulls away from aliveness itself. This meditation guides us in letting go, first through the body, and then practicing letting go of thoughts and relaxing and resting in the changing flow of experience. The blessing of letting go is a homecoming into the truth and wholeness of what we are, a realization of reality, and freedom.
The Path of Spiritual Surrender: Part 1
June 23, 2022 15:37 - 55 minutes - 37.8 MBThe Path of Spiritual Surrender: Part 1 - Cultivating a surrendering presence allows us to release the identity of a small, separate self, and open to the truth and fullness of who we are. These two talks explore misunderstandings about surrender (such as the fear that we will become passive or condone injustice) and the practices that create the grounds for surrender, emotional healing, transformational activism and spiritual freedom.
Meditation: Befriending Your Inner Life (16:11 min.)
June 23, 2022 00:52 - 16 minutes - 11.1 MBMeditation: Befriending Your Inner Life (16:11 min.) - This meditation establishes a gentle and caring presence through bringing the image and felt sense of a smile to various domains in the body. We then settle with the breath, and practice relaxing with whatever arises, letting life be just as it is. The underlying intention is to regard all experience with a clear, interested and friendly attention. The gift is a homecoming to our naturally loving presence.
The Three Steps of Letting Go
June 16, 2022 18:11 - 44 minutes - 30.7 MBThe Three Steps of Letting Go - A wonderful inquiry is, “What is between me and openhearted presence?” This talk explores the profound healing and transformation that arises when we release the blocks to our natural and loving awareness.
Meditation: Relaxing Back into Open Wakefulness
June 16, 2022 01:05 - 19 minutes - 13.6 MBMeditation: Relaxing Back into Open Wakefulness - This meditation begins by relaxing through the body and connecting with inner aliveness and space. We then include sounds and sense the openness to life. At the center of the practice is a relaxing back and inhabiting spacious awareness. The meditation ends as we experience the heart from the vantage of spacious awareness and offer prayers to our inner life and all life.
Cultivating a Courageous Heart – Part 2
June 09, 2022 19:12 - 56 minutes - 38.9 MBCultivating a Courageous Heart – Part 2 - In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding—to ourselves, each other and our world– with courageous, wise hearts.
Cultivating a Courageous Heart – Part 1
June 02, 2022 19:24 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBCultivating a Courageous Heart – Part 1 - In the face of violence, hatred and loss, how do we handle the reactivity we feel? Our own anger, hatred and fear? These two talks offer guidance and practice in letting our own vulnerability be a portal to responding – to ourselves, each other and our world – with courageous, wise hearts.
Meditation: Reconnecting to Silence and Presence
June 02, 2022 01:18 - 19 minutes - 13.2 MBMeditation: Reconnecting to Silence and Presence - Only in silence and presence do we realign with what matters to our hearts. This simple practice of arriving in an embodied awareness supports us in touching the grounds of true transformation and healing. It closes with a powerful poem by Gunilla Norris, “Sharing Silence.”
Nourishing Our Spirit in Times of Collective Fear
May 26, 2022 03:20 - 46 minutes - 32.1 MBNourishing Our Spirit in Times of Collective Fear -
Meditation: Whole Body Breathing
May 26, 2022 00:55 - 21 minutes - 14.7 MBMeditation: Whole Body Breathing - 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.