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
Tara Brach quotes about
Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.
The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.
Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
You have a unique body and mind, with a particular history and conditioning. No one can offer you a formula for navigating all situations and all states of mind. Only by listening inwardly in a fresh and open way will you discern at any given time what most serves your healing and freedom.
I decided to write 'True Refuge' during a major dive in my own health. Diagnosed with a genetic disease that affected my mobility, I faced tremendous fear and grief about losing the fitness and physical freedom I loved.
There is so much division in this world. So what is really the path of healing? It can begin in this moment, by embracing the life that`s here.
The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to "the sweetness of belonging," is acceptance - acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment.
In the collective psyche it is being understood... that we can cultivate wisdom and compassion.
I think the reason Buddhism and Western psychology are so compatible is that Western psychology helps to identify the stories and the patterns in our personal lives, but what Buddhist awareness training does is it actually allows the person to develop skills to stay in what's going on.
We are mindful of desire when we experience it with an embodied awareness, recognizing the sensations and thoughts of wanting as arising and passing phenomena. While this isn't easy, as we cultivate the clear seeing and compassion of Radical Acceptance, we discover we can open fully to this natural force, and remain free in its midst.
As we free ourselves from the suffering of 'something is wrong with me, 'we trust and express the fullness of who we are.'
As I noticed feelings and thoughts appear and disappear, it became increasingly clear that they were just coming and going on their own. . . . There was no sense of a self owning them.
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.