Bridging the Divide: Learning to Tend and Befriend

Bridging the Divide: Learning to Tend and Befriend

One of the great sufferings facing us is the growing divide between humans with different views, different realities. This talk looks at several levels of divides—being at war with ourselves, creating separation in our personal relationships, and societal divides. We...
Belonging to the Earth

Belonging to the Earth

As a species, forgetting our belonging to our larger body of Earth is causing suffering for this entire living web. In this talk we look at what causes and sustains this trance of forgetting. We then explore the ways we each can awaken a sense of loving connectedness...
Repairing our Hearts – Healing with the RAIN of Compassion

Repairing our Hearts – Healing with the RAIN of Compassion

Living in a fear-based society fuels the trance of separation and unworthiness. This talk explores how we can bring an engaged compassionate presence to the suffering of this trance—in our inner work, and more broadly, in healing our culture (from the 2020 IMCW 7-day...
“Play a Greater Part” – Bodhisattva for Our Times

“Play a Greater Part” – Bodhisattva for Our Times

“Play a Greater Part” – Bodhisattva for Our Times – During scary and uncertain times, the habitual reflex is to try to find ground by creating stories about what’s happening and hardening into us-them blame. This only perpetuates the aggression and violence that...
Awakening from the Trance of Bad-Othering

Awakening from the Trance of Bad-Othering

Great spiritual leaders of social movements teach that true transformation arises from realizing our interconnectedness, and the light of the divine in each being. Sadly, through human history, much suffering has come from perceiving others as bad-others, flawed...
Sustaining Our Caring

Sustaining Our Caring

All transformation arises out of love; it is the energy of caring about life that moves us toward inner, relational and societal healing. With a primary focus on our radically re-enlivened movement for racial justice and equity, this talk looks at ways of remembering...
A Courageous Presence with Racism

A Courageous Presence with Racism

Anti-Black racism is the core wound of American culture, and we each have a role to play in fighting racism, a medicine to bring to these times. This talk explores how we can offer an honest and courageous presence to key domains of this suffering. We then look at...
Earth’s Crisis: On the Edge of the Roof

Earth’s Crisis: On the Edge of the Roof

This talk was given in 2015, yet it is as timely as ever. It views the ecological dis-ease of our planet through the lens of our evolutionary unfolding. We explore the egoic trance that has precipitated the destruction of our environment, and the inner practices of...
Part 2 – The Answer is Love:  Evolving out of “Bad Other”

Part 2 – The Answer is Love:  Evolving out of “Bad Other”

These two talks address the inquiry: How do we awaken from the contempt and hatred that causes so much suffering in our world? The first talk looks at how we can use the practices of mindfulness and compassion to decondition our habits of self-blame and self-hatred,...
Compassion Towards All: Moving toward a Plant Based Diet

Compassion Towards All: Moving toward a Plant Based Diet

For most of human history it’s been “normal” to eat non-human animals. This is now changing. We are awakening to the massive suffering of the billions of animals killed each day for food, the horrors of the animal-food industry, and the impact it has on climate change...
Tara Talks: Compassion toward Non-Human Animals (11:39  min.)

Tara Talks: Compassion toward Non-Human Animals (11:39 min.)

Tara Talks: Compassion for Non-Human Animals For thousands of years humans have become accustomed to de-valuing, exploiting and violating non-human animals. This unseen bias of speciesism continues to create horrific suffering for billions of sentient beings each...