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Tara Brach

Tara 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.

Meditation: The Power of the Sacred Pause (6:56 min)

When we remember our deep belonging to this world, a fierce and tender courage begins to move through us. In this talk, we’ll explore “spiritual audacity” as a sacred, embodied boldness—the lion’s roar of the awakened heart. Through personal and collective lenses, we’ll reflect on what it means to live true to our essence: grounded in love, guided by truth, and called to serve the freedom and healing of all beings.

Spiritual Audacity: The Lion's Roar of the Heart

Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness. These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.
 
 In this talk, we’ll look at:
 
 - how depression and anxiety mirror our collective disconnection, and how mindful awareness can begin to heal both body and spirit.
 - how ungrieved loss turns into depression, and how opening to sorrow with compassion reconnects us to love and aliveness.
 - the “logjam” of depression, showing how small mindful shifts can restore flow, energy, and a sense of possibility.
 - how reconnecting with our heart’s deep intention awakens hope and invites a renewed capacity for presence and joy.
 - how meditation helps us move from ruminating thoughts to embodied presence, revealing the awareness that frees us.

Part 2: Healing Depression with Meditation

No matter how far you’ve wandered, this heartspace – this awake tender awareness – is only a half-breath of remembrance away. This meditation awakens attention to the space of awareness…

Meditation: The Heartspace That is Home (21:49 min)

Most people get depressed at times, and many suffer greatly from bouts of major depression. At the heart of the suffering is the experience of severed belonging—of being imprisoned in the pain of separation, unworthiness, unlovability and hopelessness.
 These two talks explore several meditation practices that reconnect us with our natural aliveness, openheartedness and awareness. They empower us to develop our inner resources, energize us to awaken, free us from rumination and remind us that we are not our depressive thoughts and feelings. The growing realization of the loving awareness that is our home heals the very roots of depression.

Part 1: Healing Depression with Meditation

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.

Meditation: Calling on Your Awakened Heart (23:52 min.)

In this rich and heartful conversation, I join two dear Buddhist monks — Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho — who are in the process of founding Clear Mountain Monastery, a new Buddhist community in the Seattle area. Their bright, warm spirit brings a lighthearted and sincere presence to our dialogue, making this exchange a true joy to share.
 
Together, we explore many dimensions of the spiritual path — including my own journey of finding refuge during a dark time, the teachers who’ve inspired me, and the teachings that most deeply call to my heart. We also reflect on the practice of RAIN, the dance between directing attention and opening to what’s here, and how compassion and equanimity intertwine to support us in these challenging times.
 
 Along the way, we touch into the Pali word sanook — meaning fun or lightheartedness — which beautifully captures the spirit of our time together.
 
May this conversation nourish your own trust in the path and remind you of the goodness and joy that are always here, waiting to be discovered.
 
 In this talk, we’ll look at:
 - how trusting our basic goodness becomes the foundation for intimacy, creativity, and awakening compassion in a suffering world.
 - Tara’s own journey through illness and fear, and how softening around pain opens the heart to freedom and love.
 - the power of the RAIN meditation to transform judgment and reactivity into mindful presence and self-acceptance.
 - how taking a sacred pause helps us step out of the virtual trance and re-enter embodied awareness and connection
 - trusting Buddha-nature — the radiant goodness that shines through all beings — as the ultimate refuge in an unraveling world.
 
 Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho are part of Clear Mountain Monastery Project, an aspiring Buddhist forest monastery in the Seattle area. 
 
 Website: https://www.clearmountainmonastery.org/
 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ClearMountainMonastery

Trusting the Path: A Conversation on Refuge & Compassion | Tara Brach, Ajahn Kovilo & Ajahn Nisabho

This meditation scans the body and directly invites the awakening of key energy centers (chakras) in our body. We then rest in the openhearted awareness that includes this ever changing creative flow of aliveness.

Meditation: Awakening Our Energy Body (22:19 min)

In an age of polarization, conspiracy thinking, and deepening mistrust, how can we cultivate a trust that is wise and healing –for our own heart and the world? This talk explores the personal and collective forces that foster mistrust, and through reflection and applied practices, we’ll explore how to nurture a trust in basic goodness and a felt sense of belonging, even in the most divided times.

Awakening Trust in a Fractured World, Part 2

In our everyday life we are conditioned to feel that life is happening to us, or that we are the doer. This meditation deconditions that self-centrality by bringing attention to the aliveness in our bodies, and then opening to receive the entire play of sounds, sensations and feelings in awareness.

Meditation: Receiving This Life in Awareness (22:37 min)

Given how our biases create separation and unfold into violence and suffering, this is a crucial domain for each of us to explore. In this interview, author and teacher Anurag Gupta offers his wise perspectives and invites Tara to share some of what she has learned in navigating this terrain. We explore how to come into a healing relationship with unhealthy thoughts; forgiving ourselves for bias (it’s impersonal); the inner freedom that arises from releasing bias and how to awaken compassion and deep respect for those we have habitually dehumanized. The interview closes with Tara leading a brief reflection on undoing bias.
 
Anu’s recent book is: Breaking Bias: Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come From - and the Science-backed Method to Unravel Them. You can pick up your copy here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/760282/breaking-bias-by-anu-gupta/ or on Anu's website at: https://www.bemorewithanu.com.

Waking up from Bias: A conversation with Tara and Anurag (Anu) Gupta

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