Tara Brach
Tara Brach
Tara Brachis an American psychologist and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is the senior teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C., a "spiritual community" that teaches and practices Vipassana meditation. The group's Wednesday night meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, which is taught by Dr. Brach, is a large gathering of approximately 250-300 people. Her colleagues include Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and others in the Vipassana or Insight meditation tradition. Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth17 May 1953
CountryUnited States of America
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns.
Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.
Suffering is our call to attention, our call to investigate the truth of our beliefs.
Our attitude in the face of life's challenges determines our suffering or our freedom.
The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being "without anxiety about imperfection.
Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There’s less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what’s happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom.
Presence is not some exotic state that we need to search for or manufacture. In the simplest terms, it is the felt sense of wakefulness, openness, and tenderness that arises when we are fully here and now with our experience.
The emotion of fear often works overtime. Even when there is no immediate threat, our body may remain tight and on guard, our mind narrowed to focus on what might go wrong. When this happens, fear is no longer functioning to secure our survival. We are caught in the trance of fear and our moment-to-moment experience becomes bound in reactivity. We spend our time and energy defending our life rather than living it fully.
When we relax about imperfection, we no longer lose our life moments in the pursuit of being different and in the fear of what is wrong.
The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.
By regarding ourselves with kindness, we begin to dissolve the identity of an isolated, deficient self. This creates the grounds for including others in an unconditionally loving heart.
As we free ourselves from the suffering of 'something is wrong with me, 'we trust and express the fullness of who we are.'
Even a few moments of offering lovingkindness can reconnect you with the purity of your loving heart.