Tara Brach Quotes - Page 5

True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are. Ultimately, its our own true nature.

The next time you find yourself in some way trying desperately to land safely, your compassion might be what finally gives you the courage you need to let go of the controls. In doing so, you might discover that each time you let go, it becomes easier and easier to re-enter the atmosphere of your own aliveness. Gradually you’ll come home to the flow of your own living presence, the warmth and space of your awakening heart.

We can find true refuge within our own hearts and minds-right here, right now, in the midst of our moment-to-momen t lives. We find true refuge whenever we recognize the silent space of awareness behind all our busy doing and striving. We find refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We find refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of our true nature.

I think it's possible to have experiences of love without attachment, but I think part of our conditioning is to grasp at times, especially when there are unmet needs. It's part of our nervous system to hold on to where we think those needs will be met.

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.

The mistake we make is that when we're feeling another person is not treating us in the way that makes us feel secure and loved, we fixate our attention on that person and what's wrong with them. We also fixate on what's wrong with us. Instead, we can bring forward two wings of awareness: the wing of mindfulness (noticing what's going on inside us) and the wing of kindness (compassion to what's going on inside us).

As long as we are alive, we feel fear. It is an intrinsic part of our makeup, as natural as a bitter cold winter day or the winds that rip branches off trees. If we resist it or push it aside, we miss a powerful opportunity for awakening.

Take moments to savor what is beautiful and good.

When I watch that attachment happening, I see the beliefs that I have around it. If somebody's not paying attention to me in a certain way, in my mind, it means they don't love me or they don't respect me. Bringing awareness to the beliefs that are underneath the attachment and bringing awareness to the way my body and heart are tightening, helps me wake up and re-inhabit a larger space of being. Holding on and pushing away might be going on but I'm freer to respond in a healthy way.

It is natural that our minds replay old stories, because that is our own mechanism for trying to work out unresolved problems. Yet rerunning those stories will be a fruitless looping until we learn how to move from the story into our body. This is why therapy alone often doesn't bring full healing and awakening.

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.

What would it be like if I could accept life--accept this moment--exactly as it is?

There's healthy attachment, like with a mother and child. It's biologically part of our survival.

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.

Because we have such a deeply grooved conditioning to reject and condemn ourselves, particularly in this culture, I find that emphasis on the word "acceptance" is central in healing. It brings our attention to the possibility of saying yes to what we are experiencing in the moment, and counteracts the conditioning to push away what feels unpleasant or intense or unfamiliar.

Making a U-turn from our thoughts to our feelings re-connects us to our own inner experience and creates the grounds for connecting with others in a more authentic way. It's a movement from head to heart.

We are waiting for the next moment to contain what this moment does not.

Meditation helps us gain the capacity to relax, to connect with what is going on right here and right now, to connect with other people, to re-access our resourcefulness, our clarity and our ability to focus and keep an open heart.

Stories can be a jumping-off point to access the emotions and the sensations in the body.

I want to accept myself completely, just as I am.

I sometimes call this our "spacesuit self" because we come into an environment that is difficult and challenging, where we're told to be different. We're told to jump over hoops to be loved and appreciated, so we have to develop spacesuit strategies to get approval and create ways to avoid being judged.

I mentioned earlier the two wings of awareness. The first step is recognizing the fear of getting close to others - this honest witnessing of where it is in the body, where it is in your beliefs.The other wing regards what's seen with kindness and compassion.

We, like the Mother of the World, become the compassionate presence that can hold, with tenderness, the rising and passing waves of suffering.