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IMCW Audio Dharma (Teaching Talks) Archives:

The talks below are freely available for download. All files are in .mp3 format. To download, right-click (or Control-click on the Mac) and select "Save As".

Tara Brach's Podcasts: download iTunes, go to the iTunes store, search on "Tara Brach", subscribe, and listen to Tara Brach's Podcasts of recent dharma talks (free).
To use Explorer 7 or another "podcatcher," copy and paste the RSS feed URL - http://www.imcw.org/audio/TBPodcasts.xml - into the address line of the browser.

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Tara Brach

Dear Friends,

Your generosity enables us to continue to make these talks available online. Please consider offering a donation of any size - it is greatly appreciated!

Financial support can be given by making your tax-deductible secure donation to IMCW online. Or, mail a check payable to IMCW, P.O. Box 212, Garrett Park, MD 20896.

With lovingkindness, Tara Brach - www.tarabrach.com

Donate to IMCW now

2009 - Wednesday Nights at River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Bethesda, MD - 7:30pm:

Use the "Donate Now" button above to support this project in spreading the teachings.
If everyone who listened gave even $2.00 a month, these pages could be self-supporting!

Date Title Teacher Length File Size
2009-06-24 Meditation Tara Brach 23:20 4.1 MB
 

Part 2 - Wise Practice
This three week series reviews many key components of Buddhist meditation practice. Beginning with intention and attitude, we cover the strategies that help us arrive in presence, the key elements of mindfulness, working with difficult emotional states and the practices that awaken our heart. Each week will include guided meditations and reflections.

  54:41 9.6 MB
2009-06-17 Meditation Tara Brach 27:39 4.7 MB
 

Part 1 - Wise Practice
This three week series reviews many key components of Buddhist meditation practice. Beginning with intention and attitude, we cover the strategies that help us arrive in presence, the key elements of mindfulness, working with difficult emotional states and the practices that awaken our heart. Each week will include guided meditations and reflections.

  48:11 8.3 MB
2009-06-10 Meditation Tara Brach 24:21 4.2 MB
 

Don't Know Mind
Thoughts, and more broadly, conceptual knowledge, cannot lead to the direct realization of truth, of reality. While thoughts are an essential part of surviving and thriving, spiritual awakening only becomes possible when we step out of the trance of thinking. This talk invites listeners into the radical openness and freedom of not-knowing.

  50:11 8.6 MB
2009-06-03 Meditation (enjoy the sounds of the intense rainstorm that ran through Bethesda that evening!) Tara Brach 25:55 4.5 MB
 

The Attitude that Perpetuates Suffering
Our conditioning is to conclude that "something is wrong" when we encounter difficulty. This way of relating to experience binds us in a trance--it locks in the identification with a separate, victimized, self; it leads to unwise action and it removes us from presence. This talk guides us in recognizing our often unconscious attitude towards what is happening, and arriving in the unconditional presence that is the source of love, wisdom and freedom.

  44:51 7.7 MB
2009-05-27 Meditation Tara Brach 24:21 4.2 MB
 

Celebrating Vesak: Oh Nobly Born
Vesak is the Buddhist holiday that celebrates the Buddha's birth, enlightment and death. What links these events is the radical and powerful message of all Buddhist teachings: We each have the potential to realize and live from and awakened heart and mind. This talk explores how the key mythological, psychological and spiritual junctures of the Buddha's life are entirely relevant to our own transformation.

  48:09 8.3 MB
2009-05-20 Three Gifts That Serve Freedom - There are three spiritual capacities that are essential for our freedom. The first, forgiveness, is the releasing of stories that this self, or another, is bad. It is an opening of the heart to include all parts of our own being and this world. The second, inner fire, is the energy of devotion to what most matters to us. The third, looking within to realize what we are, reveals the truth of reality itself. This talk uses an ancient Indian teaching tale and guided meditations to explore these core elements of spiritual liberation. Tara Brach 56:48 9.7 MB
2009-05-13 Meditation Tara Brach 21:20 3.7 MB
 

Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield: An Evening of Questions and Responses

Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield 1:01:05 10.4 MB
2009-05-05 Freedom from Trance - (This talk given at the IMCW Spring Retreat at Sevenoaks, VA. The remaining talks from the retreat will be posted as they become available at Miscellaneous recordings, including events and retreats.)
We live in the story of being a separate entity, and often, with the felt sense that something is wrong. This talk investigates the genesis of this trance, and the awakening that is possible when our thoughts, feelings and sense of presence itself are recognized by awareness.
Tara Brach 57:55 9.9 MB
2009-04-29 Meditation Tara Brach 25:54 4.5 MB
 

Wise Investigation
This talk focuses on the use of inquiry and investigation in energizing a lucid, mindful presence. The interest and care that underlies wise investigation is essential in both healing difficult emotional tangles and in revealing the very nature of reality. Guided meditation included.

  45:50 7.9 MB
2009-04-22 Meditation Tara Brach 25:20 4.3 MB
 

Intention and Spiritual Freedom - Part 2
While we can't change the past, it is our intention in this present moment that determines the unfolding of happiness and freedom in our life. When unconscious, our intentions are often shaped by craving and aversion. These two talks explore how we can become mindful of intention, and realize the depth and purity of our innate aspiration toward awakening and freedom.

  52:06 8.9 MB
2009-04-15 Meditation Tara Brach 26:09 4.5 MB
 

Intention and Spiritual Freedom - Part 1
While we can't change the past, it is our intention in this present moment that determines the unfolding of happiness and freedom in our life. When unconscious, our intentions are often shaped by craving and aversion. These two talks explore how we can become mindful of intention, and realize the depth and purity of our innate aspiration toward awakening and freedom.

  55:59 9.6 MB
2009-04-08 Meditation (Note: Due to technical difficulties in recording, the first 10 minutes is missing, but the mockingbird in the background and the remaining meditation is very worthy of a listen. Metta from the editor.) Tara Brach 18:57 3.3 MB
 

Downwind from Flowers
This talk reflects on ways that we can attend to nature--our inner body, the natural world and our relatedness to each other. Through these domains we can discover the impermanent flow of life, a gateway to pure Beingness and the healing to wholeness that arises from love.

  55:16 9.5 MB
2009-04-01 Meditation Tara Brach 26:49 4.6 MB
 

Awakening Through Conflict
The wisdom of the Buddha can guide us not only in discovering inner freedom, but in healing that which divides us from each other. While conflict is inevitable--we are wired toward flight and flight when our needs are not met--it is possible to have our patterns of interpersonal reactivity be the very grounds for awakening. This talk draws on the work of Non Violent Comunications (Marshal Rosenberg) and explores how mindful communications are an interpersonal meditation that gives rise to compassion and understanding.

  53:55 9.3 MB
2009-03-25 Meditation Tara Brach 26:07 4.5 MB
 

Part 2 - The Body as a Gateway to Full Presence
We have strong conditioning to take false refuge in our mind, and disconnect from our senses. These two talks explore the pathways and gifts of coming home to embodied awareness.

  54:28 9.3 MB
2009-03-18 Meditation Tara Brach 28:32 4.9 MB
 

Part 1 - The Body as a Gateway to Full Presence
We have strong conditioning to take false refuge in our mind, and disconnect from our senses. These two talks explore the pathways and gifts of coming home to embodied awareness.

  49:28 8.5 MB
2009-03-11 Meditation Tara Brach 27:42 4.8 MB
 

Without Anxiety About Imperfection
The nature of being human is that we get caught in anger and judgment, hurt and fear. This talk explores what it means to be without anxiety towards this universal emotional conditioning as it appears in ourselves and others. Condemning imperfection binds our identity with an imperfect self. As we learn to pause and open to the direct embodied experience of emotions, we discover a space of presence that is filled with compassion and wisdom. Like the ocean, we can include difficult waves of experience and yet remember our inherent vastness, mystery and wholeness.

  49:28 8.5 MB
2009-03-04 Meditation Tara Brach 26:14 4.5 MB
 

Divine Abodes - Equanimity
Lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equinimity, are natural expressions of our awakened heart. In this series of four talks, we will examine what arouses these qualities of a wise heart. Each talk will include guided reflections. Equanimity is the balanced and open quality of presence that arises when there is no resisting or grasping after experience. It is through the space of this wise presence that unconditional love is free to shine through.

  49:28 8.5 MB
2009-02-25 Meditation Tara Brach 24:59 4.3 MB
 

Divine Abodes - Joy
Lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equinimity, are natural expressions of our awakened heart. In this series of four talks, we will examine what arouses these qualities of a wise heart. Each talk will include guided reflections. Joy naturally arises from the heart space that welcomes all that is. This talk describes four pathways of discovering and inhabiting this intrinsic openness of Being.

  53:40 9.2 MB
2009-02-18 Meditation Tara Brach 24:36 4.2 MB
 

Divine Abodes - Compassion
Lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equinimity, are natural expressions of our awakened heart. In this series of four talks, we will examine what arouses these qualities of a wise heart. Each talk will include guided reflections. Compassion naturally arises as we allow ourselves to be touched by suffering--our own, those we know, all beings. As we discover our shared vulnerability, the pain of separation dissolves and our hearts open to widening circles of belonging.

  53:14 9.1 MB
2009-02-11 Meditation Tara Brach 23:26 4.0 MB
 

Divine Abodes - Lovingkindness
Lovingkindness, compassion, joy and equinimity, are natural expressions of our awakened heart. In this series of four talks, we will examine what arouses these qualities of a wise heart. Each talk will include guided reflections. A key theme in cultivating lovingkindness is learning to see the secret beauty--the sacred--that shines through all beings.
"DASI: Prayers by Women" - CD is available at www.karnamrita.com. You hear her beautiful chanting at the end of this talk.
Chanting with Karnamrita Dasi that is at the end of this talk.

  57:02 9.8 MB
2009-02-04 Meditation Tara Brach 27:20 4.7 MB
 

Freedom In the Midst of Fear - Part II
One understanding of the spiritual path is relating wisely to fear. Our conditioned reaction is to feel aversion to fear and do anything but simply experience it. We discover freedom when instead of reacting, we recognize and open to fear with a kind, committed presence. While fear might or might not remain, with awareness, the suffering of being identified as a fearful self dissolves.

In Part II of this talk we explore a range of pathways for cultivating a healing and freeing presence in the midst of fear.

  52:09 8.9 MB
2009-01-28 Meditation Tara Brach 23:42 4.1 MB
 

Freedom In the Midst of Fear - Part I
One understanding of the spiritual path is relating wisely to fear. Our conditioned reaction is to feel aversion to fear and do anything but simply experience it. We discover freedom when instead of reacting, we recognize and open to fear with a kind, committed presence. While fear might or might not remain, with awareness, the suffering of being identified as a fearful self dissolves.

In Part I of this talk, we look at how to recognize the physical, mental, emotional and behavioral facets of the body of fear.

  47:32 8.2 MB
2009-01-21 Meditation Tara Brach 26:54 4.6 MB
  The Courage to Awaken
Courage is the greatness of heart that allows us, in the face of fear, to be true to what matters. This talk is a reflection on how we can become increasingly courageous in those parts of our lives where we have held back from living and loving fully.
  50:54 8.7 MB
2009-01-14 Meditation Tara Brach 24:11 4.1 MB
  Humble of Heart
As consciousness evolves, there is a deepening understanding of the interdependence of all of life. This wisdom naturally leads to an authentic humility--an awakening from the burden and violence of self-importance. In this talk we explore the relationship between being humble of heart, and living with kindness and compassion. There is particular attention to the necessity of humility and deep listening--as individuals and societies--if we are to respond to conflict in a way that can bring peace to this earth.
  47:41 8.2 MB
2009-01-07 Meditation Tara Brach 24:06 4.1 MB
  The Three Refuges
The spiritual path can be understood as forgetting and remembering. We suffer when we lose sight of truth, of love, of awareness. And we touch freedom in the moments of remembering. This talk includes guided reflections on three gateways to remembering: three refuges--buddha, dharma and sangha--that are the foundation of classical Buddhist teachings and profoundly relevant in our contemporary lives.
  1:02:28 10.7 MB

 

 

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