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.
2023-06-14 Meditation: Resting in Breath, Relaxing into Life 21:38
This meditation invites us to collect our attention with a calming breath, and then with the senses as a home base, settle into presence. The reminders encourage a letting go of thoughts, shifting from virtual reality into the aliveness of moment-to-moment experience. In that letting go into life we find the stillness, wakefulness and openness of our true nature.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-06-14 Unwinding Anxiety with Awareness: A conversation with Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer (Part 2) 41:24
with Judson Brewer, Tara Brach
Anxiety is spiking around the world and we need the radical medicine of awareness to unwind it. In this two-part conversation, Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer look at how anxiety is a habit that can be unlearned as we cultivate a curious and kind mindful presence. Jud offers the scientific grounds for this “unwinding”, drawing on his experience as a pioneer and leading researcher in the field of mindfulness and addiction.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-06-07 Meditation – Cultivating a Relaxed Attention 21:28
In this meditation we engage a relaxed and alert attention by scanning through the body, opening to sound, and resting in the awareness that includes all the senses. This presence is stabilized with the use of a home base, for many the breath, and reminders to “relax back” when the mind naturally drifts.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-06-07 Unwinding Anxiety with Awareness: A conversation with Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer (Part 1) 53:03
with Judson Brewer, Tara Brach
Anxiety is spiking around the world and we need the radical medicine of awareness to unwind it. In this two-part conversation, Tara and Dr. Judson Brewer look at how anxiety is a habit that can be unlearned as we cultivate a curious and kind mindful presence. Jud offers the scientific grounds for this “unwinding”, drawing on his experience as a pioneer and leading researcher in the field of mindfulness and addiction. Together they explore the power of particular mindfulness-based strategies, including noting what is happening, recognizing our habit loops, arousing curiosity and cultivating self-care. They shine a light on the genesis of worrying, how it perpetuates anxiety and ways we can become disenchanted with the habit.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-05-31 Meditation: Relaxing with Life 20:53
This meditation begins with a body scan, and then we practice opening to and relaxing with our changing experience. The sitting closes with a beautiful poem by Danna Faulds, “Just for Now.”
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-05-31 Facing Fear (Part 2) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart 53:16
Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes but is not contracted by currents of fear. (Part 2)
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-05-24 Meditation: Open-Hearted Presence 22:58
This meditation establishes a kind attention by bringing the imagery and felt sense of a smile into the body scan and then, with the breath as a home base, opens the attention to changing experience. We end with a brief loving kindness reflection.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-05-24 Facing Fear (Part 1) – Awakening Your Fearless Heart 52:36
Fear is a natural and universal part of our incarnation, and, when it goes on overdrive, we get imprisoned in the suffering of separation. These two talks explore how the RAIN meditation can help us face fear, and discover the boundless loving awareness that includes but is not contracted by currents of fear.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-05-17 Meditation: Letting Life Live through You 15:52
This meditation awakens the senses and then guides us into the wakeful openness that includes the whole play of sensations, feelings and sound. We become fully awake and alive as we open to the awareness that allows life to live through us.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC
2023-05-17 Releasing the Habits That Imprison Your Spirit – Part 2 59:34
Addictions of all levels of intensity arise from disconnection and are spiking globally. Humans are experiencing epidemic levels of loneliness, and this combined with engineered products and substances that are highly addictive leads to great suffering. In these two talks, we explore how we get hooked on behaviors that we know cause harm, and how mindfulness and self-compassion can serve our freedom. Key to this process is reconnecting with our inner life, and remembering we are in this together, awakening together.
Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC

Creative Commons License