Tara Brach

Part 1: Rewiring for Happiness and Freedom - The Buddha said, “I would not be teaching this (a path of awakening) if genuine happiness and freedom were not possible.” While this is our potential, we each have deep conditioning to get stuck in feelings of fear, deficiency and separation from others. These talks explore the two interdependent pathways of undoing the conditioning that blocks our potential. In Part I we will look at how we can intentionally arouse states of wellbeing, and with practice, develop them into ongoing traits that bring presence and joy to our lives. In Part II, we will investigate how to cultivate an unconditional presence, and the radical acceptance and love, that are the grounds of true happiness and inner freedom.

Meditation: Coming Home with the Breath - Our breath is always available as a pathway back to presence. This simple meditation guides us to relax and awaken in the body, and then establishes the breath as a home base for our attention. Our practice is to notice when the mind becomes distracted, and gently return to our breath and senses. This helps the mind to become increasingly settled, calm and clear. We close with a short heart blessing.

Intimacy with Life (Part 2) - Zen master Dōgen teaches that enlightenment is intimacy with all things. These two talks explore teachings and practices that cultivate intimacy - a liberating experience of relatedness and oneness with our living world.

Guided Meditation: Intimacy with the Flow of Life - The meditation begins with a body scan, filling the body with aliveness. Then we widen attention, becoming aware of the sounds that are happening moment-to-moment, aware of the sensations, feelings, or emotions that are here. Again and again, the invitation is to relax back into presence, intimate with the life living through you. In allowing life to be just as it is, we inhabit pure Beingness, at home in the dynamic and tender awareness that is our shared essence.

Intimacy with Life (Part 1) - Zen master Dōgen teaches that enlightenment is intimacy with all things. These two talks explore teachings and practices that cultivate intimacy - a liberating experience of relatedness and oneness with our living world.

Meditation: Relaxing Back into Presence - When we are stressed, our body and mind contract, and energetically we resist the life in the present moment. This meditation helps de-condition the stress reaction by guiding us to relax open from thoughts, relax physical tension, and gently relax back over and over into living presence.

Being with Love, Death and Grief - Grief is our natural way of expressing loss for what we love, and learning to open to grief serves the deepening and widening of our loving. This event, given at the Upaya Zen Center on June 25, 2023, includes short meditations and talks by Frank Ostaseski and Tara, and a powerful session of questions and responses.

Meditation: Present Heart - We awaken a present heart by relaxing with the breath and bringing the kindness of a smile into our bodily experience. This meditation ends with offering blessings to our inner life and all beings.

Ask Me Anything with Tara and Jonathan (Part 2) - Tara responds to your questions, with Jonathan Foust, her husband and known meditation teacher, as the interviewer.

Meditation: From Head to Full Being - When we are lost inside thoughts we lose connection with our heart, aliveness and spirit. This meditation guides us to a wakeful presence and invites us to return over and over from virtual reality into the mysterious, tender vastness that is our true being. Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought!  Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?  Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down  in always widening rings of being.  Rumi