Meditation: Being the Ocean and Opening to the Waves (retreat) (26:55 min.)
We can’t truly open to the waves of life unless we recognize our Oceanness, the formless awareness that is our source. This meditation begins with awakening the senses and then invites us to discover the spacious presence in the background of all experience. NOTE:...
Meditation: Spacious, Loving Awareness (from retreat) (30:03 min.) ~ with video
~ an Open Awareness Meditation ~ When our awareness is awake and open, we naturally respond to this changing life with warmth, tenderness and love. This practice helps us discover the spaciousness of awareness by realizing the space and aliveness that is in the body,...
Guided Heart Meditation: Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (27:22 min.)
This heart meditation guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a direct sense of belonging – knowing that we can never be alone (given at the Fall 2019 IMCW 7-Day Silent...
Short Talk & Guided Heart Meditation: Releasing Blame (retreat) (41:39 min.)
Our self-protective habits of resentment and blame block intimacy and connection with ourself and others. This short talk and meditation are an invitation to deepen our understanding of the suffering of blame, and to release the armoring to loving freely. Includes a...
Short Talk and Guided Heart Meditation – Releasing Blame (retreat) (37:50 min.)
This meditation explores the meaning of forgiveness and its role in healing and transformation. We then are guided in a forgiveness practice that helps us release the armoring of blame, and inhabit an inclusive and open heart (given at the Fall 2019 IMCW 7-Day Silent...
Short Talk and Guided Heart Meditation – Loving Kindness – Befriending our Lives (39:29 min.)
This meditation introduces the domain of “heart practices” and then guides us in how to cultivate a deep quality of friendliness in relating to our inner life and each other. The gift of this practice is a direct sense of belonging – knowing that we can never be...
Meditation: Calling on Loving Presence (from retreat) (18:18 min)
Often, when we’re really struggling, the only way to find compassion for ourselves is by reaching out to a larger source of love. We might for instance take refuge by calling on the Buddha, Divine Mother, God, Jesus, Great Spirit, Shiva, or Allah – reaching towards a...
Vipassana or Insight Meditation and Instruction: A Path of Practice from Retreat (31:15 min.)
Vipassana, also known as insight meditation, is training in bringing a clear mindful attention to our moment to moment experience. We begin by relaxing through the body and then resting attention with the breath – or some other sensory anchor – and allowing the mind...
Retreat Short Talk & Meditation: Loving Kindness – Awakening and Expressing Our Heart (36:50 min.)
This short talk and guided meditation remind us that we each have the capacity to awaken our hearts. We explore together the lovingkindness (metta) meditation, and emphasize holding our own being and dear ones with a tender, open and loving presence (from the IMCW...
Ten-Minute Basic Meditation (10 min.)
Tara offers a short introductory meditation with a body scan, bringing focus to the breath and sounds, then resting in awareness in silence for the final 3.5 minutes ~ from the first morning instructions at the fall 2015 Insight Meditation Community of Washington...
Meditation: The Silence That’s Listening (morning on retreat) (27:15 min.)
Listening to sounds is a powerful way to quiet the thinking mind and connect with the natural openness of awareness. In this guided meditation, we begin by opening to sound and then listening to and feeling the whole changing flow of life – allowing whatever is...
Meditation: Spacious, Loving Awareness (from retreat) (30:03 min.)
~ an Open Awareness Meditation ~ When our awareness is awake and open, we naturally respond to this changing life with warmth, tenderness and love. This practice helps us discover the spaciousness of awareness by realizing the space and aliveness that is in the body,...
Short Talk & Meditation: Forgiving and Freeing Our Hearts (36:53 min)
Forgiveness for others becomes possible when we’ve held our own being with great compassion. This short talk and guided meditation brings forth our most awake and tender presence as we ask for forgiveness, offer care to the woundedness within us, and then extend...