Tara Brach

This guided meditation includes a full body scan, and the recognition of the formless awareness that includes and is the source of all experience. By recognizing that awareness we discover the silence and stillness that is the ground of all experience. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Part I - In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience. These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult "stuck" places, how inquiry enables us to become more intimate and understanding of others, and in the deepest way, how inquiry can reveal the deepest truth of what we are…our true nature. The talks include several guided reflections that can enrich your meditation practice and serve spiritual awakening. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation begins with collecting attention with the breath, and awakens us to the experience of aliveness and inner space by scanning the body. We then open to receive all the senses in awake awareness, and to inhabiting that boundless receptive awareness that is our home. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Shifting our relationship with fear is central to the evolution of consciousness. Our suffering arises when our thoughts, feelings and sense of identity are shaped by fear. As we learn to attend to fear with mindfulness and care, we discover the vast tender presence that has room for the waves, and can fully cherish this life. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

We spend many moments in a trance, time traveling to the past and future, lost in a virtual reality. This meditation helps us collect our attention with our breath, awaken through the body, and open the senses. We then rest in the wakeful openness that includes changing experience, aware of the mystery and vividness of being Here. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

As humans face the darkness of fear, violence, and division, something else is also stirring: an awakening field of courage, care, and connection. This talk explores the primitive survival strategies that keep us in trance and the evolutionary currents of awakening that return us to belonging. Through reflection and practice, we are invited to nurture the river of love and justice moving through our world, and to step forward—together—into beloved community. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation awakens the senses with a mindful scanning of the body, establishes an anchor for presence, and invites us to arrive again and again, deepening the pathway home. When difficult or intense experience arises, the practice is to learn to open to what is here with a clear, allowing and kind attention (a favorite from the archives). Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

While it's natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence. This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to thoughts, resisting feelings, holding tight to beliefs and armoring our heart. We look at how egoic controlling manifests individually and as a society; the process of awakening from exclusive identification with a separate ego/self; what it means to die into a larger reality and the similarities of psychedelics and meditation in the process of letting go. The gift of releasing the grip of controlling is true freedom; inhabiting the intrinsic beauty of our beings, and having our lives be an expression of creativity, wisdom and love. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

In this guided meditation, we explore how true peace and happiness arise not from controlling life, but from gently opening to it. When we meet our moment-to-moment experience with tenderness and awareness, the heart naturally softens into ease. This practice begins by awakening presence in the body and senses—feeling the breath, sensations, and sounds as they are. From there, we widen into a spacious, kind awareness that includes the changing flow of thoughts, emotions, and experience. Rather than pushing away or judging what arises, we learn to rest in a welcoming heart. This meditation supports: ✨ Mindfulness and embodied presence ✨ Emotional healing through non-judgment ✨ Self-compassion and inner peace ✨ Nervous system regulation ✨ Living with greater openness and love We close with a short verse from poet Dorothy Hunt, "Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment," reminding us that freedom is found right here—in allowing life to be just as it is. ________________ Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music Support Tara's Work: If you find value in these talks and wish to support their continuation, please consider making a donation. Your generosity helps us keep these teachings available to all. Visit: https://www.tarabrach.com/donation/

While it's natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence. This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to thoughts, resisting feelings, holding tight to beliefs and armoring our heart. We look at how egoic controlling manifests individually and as a society; the process of awakening from exclusive identification with a separate ego/self; what it means to die into a larger reality and the similarities of psychedelics and meditation in the process of letting go. The gift of releasing the grip of controlling is true freedom; inhabiting the intrinsic beauty of our beings, and having our lives be an expression of creativity, wisdom and love. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation begins with a period of relaxing and collecting our attention with intentional long, deep breathing. We then deepen embodied presence, and widen to the awareness that includes sounds, sensations, feelings, breath, and all experience. When the mind drifts from this open, awake awareness, we gently return, re-relaxing and resting in an easeful, alert presence. Recorded at Tara's Wednesday night class, the meditation ends with a sense of melting into community – relaxed and alert. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation establishes a gentle and caring presence through bringing the image and felt sense of a smile to various domains in the body. We then settle with the breath, and practice relaxing with whatever arises, letting life be just as it is. The underlying intention is to regard all experience with a clear, interested and friendly attention. The gift is a homecoming to our naturally loving presence. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation awakens a receptive attention to the senses, starting with physical sensations and opening to sound. Then we sense how open awake awareness is receiving the moment to moment arising and passing life. In the final part of the practice, we explore how awake awareness is receiving the experience of our heart and offer blessings to our inner life and all living beings. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

What if hope is not something we cling to—but a capacity we can cultivate? In this talk, we'll explore how hope becomes a healing and liberating force when it is rooted in awareness, trust, and compassionate action. The mature expression of hope includes three interwoven elements: the aspiration to awaken our full potential, a trust in the possibility of that unfolding, and the energy to engage in service to life. We'll also look at why hope matters so deeply on the spiritual path, how it can support emotional healing and resilience, and how to recognize its shadow forms—when hope turns into striving or denial. Through mindful reflection, we discover how to nourish a hope that is spacious, embodied, and aligned with love. This teaching is offered for anyone seeking guidance in staying open-hearted and engaged during uncertain and painful times. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

The mature expression of hope includes three elements: the aspiration for manifesting our full potential, a trust that this is possible, and an energy that engages to serve this unfolding. In this talk, we explore the importance of hope on the spiritual path, its shadow side, and how we can nourish hope through these three elements in a way that serves inner freedom and the healing of our world. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

We cut off from our aliveness when we are lost in thoughts and on auto pilot. This meditation arouses a receptivity to sensation from "the inside out," opens the awareness to sound, and then invites a full resting in receptive, dynamic presence (from the archives). Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

In this talk, we'll explore what it truly means to find refuge—not through controlling life, but by coming home to the living truth of our experience. Our deepest refuge—the source of peace, safety, and freedom—is discovered through direct realization of reality itself. Drawing on the Buddhist understanding of refuge, we explore three timeless and archetypal gateways: • Awareness (Buddha) — the wakeful presence that knows our experience • Truth (Dharma) — the wisdom that liberates us when we see clearly • Love (Sangha) — the tenderness and belonging that arise through connection Through short guided reflections, we practice opening to each of these portals, allowing refuge to become a lived and embodied experience rather than an abstract idea. This talk is especially supportive if you are: Seeking inner peace during times of uncertainty or stressExploring mindfulness, meditation, or Buddhist teachingsLonging for a deeper sense of belonging and spiritual homecomingInterested in awakening compassion and wise awareness in daily life Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

In this guided meditation, Tara Brach invites you to step out of the trance of incessant thinking and return to the living presence of your body, breath, and awareness. As we move through life identified with thought, we can lose touch with the aliveness, vastness, and mystery of Being. This practice offers a gentle pathway to inhabit your energetic form—sensing the vibrancy of life moving through you—while also resting in the boundless, formless stillness that is the source of all experience. This meditation is especially supportive if you're seeking: • Relief from overthinking and mental fatigue • A deeper sense of embodied presence • Connection with stillness, awareness, and source • Mindfulness meditation for inner peace and awakening Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This talk explores how to see past the mask of personality and glimpse the sacred goodness shining through each person we meet. As we become mirrors of this goodness, we help one another trust the divine essence that connects us all. Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music