Tara Brach is a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening.
She has practiced and taught meditation for over 35 years, with an emphasis on vipassana (mindfulness or insight) meditation. Tara is the senior teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington. A clinical psychologist, Tara is the author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge.
Episode Outline:
- Finding Your Path – Tara talks about the early stages of her own path as well as share some insight and wisdom for those just getting started on their own.
- At Home Wherever We Find Ourselves – Maya Angelou once said, “I long, as does every other human, to be at home wherever I find myself.” Tara and I discuss how we can find this place of residence regardless of our physical surroundings?
- A Lamp Unto Yourself – In her book, True Refuge, Tara writes, “When the Buddha was dying, he gave a final message to his beloved attendant Ananda, and to generations to come: ‘Be a lamp unto yourself, be a refuge to yourself. Take yourself to no external refuge.’ What did he mean? Our ultimate refuge is none other than our own being. There is a light of awareness that shines through each of us and guides us home. We are never separated from this luminous awareness, any more than waves are separated from the ocean. Even when we feel most ashamed or lonely, reactive or confused, we are never actually apart from the awakened state of our heart-mind.” Which discuss in greater detail.
- The Realm of Hungry Ghosts – In Buddhist cosmology the torment of intense desire that can never really be satisfied is depicted as the realm of Hungry Ghosts. Tara and I talk about the attachments and addictions that so many of us struggle with followed by Tara offering a practice that can help liberate us.
- At War With Ourselves – For many of us, we experience life in a constant battle, or war, with ourselves. We’re plagued with thoughts of unworthiness and dissatisfaction. In some cases theses thoughts are very loud and bring some people to taking their own lives, in other cases these thoughts are more subtle, resulting in an underlying sense of dis-ease in life, often unrecognizable to people because they’ve become so used to it. Tara talks about the how and why most of us end up in this place of constant battle with ourselves as well as how to we begin to lay our weapons down and cultivate inner peace?
- Forgiveness and the Next Generation of Truth Seekers – Tara and I discuss the importance of self-forgiveness, and the forgivness of others, as a strong foundational block upon which the next generation of truth seekers can build a more caring and nurturing existence for all beings, starting right now.
Recommendations:
Tara’s Books: Radical Acceptance, True Refuge
Tara’s Audiobooks: Finding True Refuge, Mindfulness Meditation