Tara Brach Quotes

With mindfulness training we are able to recognize when we get lost in our mental dramas, and bring a kind and nonreactive presence to the feelings that accompany them.

My prayer became ‘May I find peace… May I love this life no matter what.’ I was seeking an inner refuge, an experience of presence and wholeness that could carry me through whatever losses might come.

If I can forgive the attachment in myself and open to the vulnerability that’s underneath it, then rather than fixating on another person to satisfy my need, I’m actually going right to where the needs come from and able to bring a real healing.

Feeling compassion for ourselves in no way releases us from responsibility for our actions. Rather, it releases us from the self-hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance.

The fear side can have us pull away and protect us, but it’s really a withdrawal, a disassociation, a cutting off. Rather than the word detachment, I usually use the word non-attachment. That can be wholesome when we care and are completely engaged with each other but are not attached to things being a certain way.

As we free ourselves from the suffering of ‘something is wrong with me, ‘we trust and express the fullness of who we are.’

Stories about ourselves and about the world continually arise in our minds and shape our beliefs about reality.

Happiness lies not in finding what is missing,
but in finding what is present.

In any moment, no matter how lost we feel, we can take refuge in presence and love. We need only pause, breathe, and open to the experience of aliveness within us. In that wakeful openness, we come home to the peace and freedom of our natural awareness.

Telling each other the truth and being who we are, and having space for the other person’s vulnerability in being who they are, allows us to move in a kind of dance together that’s very fluid and graceful.

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.

I recently read in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor that the natural life span of an emotion—the average time it takes for it to move through the nervous system and body—is only a minute and a half. After that we need thoughts to keep the emotion rolling. So if we wonder why we lock into painful emotional states like anxiety, depression, or rage, we need look no further than our own endless stream of inner dialogue.