Tara Brach Quotes
Meditation helps us to get out of our thoughts about the future and really be in the present moment.
The two wings of mindfulness and kindness will begin to open the heart to more connection with our world.
In a basic way, acceptance is seeing clearly what's happening and holding it with kindness. This is a radical antidote to the suffering of judging mind.
Managing life from our mental control towers, we have separated ourselves from our bodies and hearts.
My understanding is that to love, we need to be able to totally surrender to the living/dying nature of this world.
When I'm attached, I find that I don't see the other person as clearly because I'm more caught up in what I'm wanting.
People have to find their rhythm. Some people have need for more contact and time together and some people need more space.
No matter what feeling comes up - numbness, irritability, shame - if I let it arise and play itself through, I naturally open into wakefulness and care.
When we see the secret beauty of anyone, including ourselves, we see past our judgment and fear into the core of who we truly are - not an entrapped self but the radiance of goodness.
Everything we love goes. So to be able to grieve that loss, to let go, to have that grief be absolutely full, is the only way to have our heart be full and open.
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.
What would it be like if I could accept life--accept this moment--exactly as it is?
We want to be in open, loving communion with each other and our greatest fear is intimacy. That it won't work and we'll be rejected.
It's the beginning of opening to love. Even if there's not much feeling of compassion toward oneself, just say, "It's okay, sweetheart," or "I'm sorry and I love you."
Our kids go to school and they come out feeling not intelligent, not desirable, not attractive or appealing to others.
Discovering a richer quality of being-ness means to keep surrendering and letting go of resistance.
Most of us grow up with a sense of "I'm not intelligent enough." It's such a sad thing that in the West we worship a certain kind of left-brain intelligence.
I'd known that I had the capacity to love, that I enjoyed seeing other people be happy, that I had a real awe and wonder about the beauty of this world.
Extend an act of kindness each day. No one has to know. It can be a smile, reassuring words, a small favor - without expecting something in return.
Just remember that everyone is struggling; everyone is living with fear and uncertainty and it doesn't matter what their politics are.
When you are in touch with your body and heart, it allows you to then be in the world and act with intention and clarity and kindness.
If you let someone know you appreciate him or her, especially when you're going to disagree, it gets that person's defenses down.
Just come into stillness. Have your intention be to relax with the breath. That will begin to set in motion a habit that will start to train the mind.
Stories can be a jumping-off point to access the emotions and the sensations in the body.
The main thing going on around intimacy is that we've developed a lot of strategies so we'll be a desirable package.
If there's a demand of being together in a certain way, those expectations and judgements take away from that space and create an edginess and a cramped-ness to the relationship.
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.
When we experience stress, the nervous system tries to control things. Part of waking up is discovering what we are beyond that controlling organism.
By taking the time to explore charged memories in therapy we might uncover feelings that have been buried for decades.
It may sound lovey-dovey, but there's research showing the positive effect of meditation on parts of the brain that control emotion.
When caught in conflict and blame - make a U-turn and shift your attention from blaming thoughts to what's going on emotionally in your body.
There's healthy attachment, like with a mother and child. It's biologically part of our survival.
A lot of times in spiritual communities, detachment is considered to be an expression of being spiritually evolved when often, we have want and fear around being in relationship with each other.
If it weren't for desire, the formless would not have come into form and engage creatively.