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This week we talk to Tara Brach
Tara Brach is an American psychologist and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C Brach also teaches Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, the Kripalu Center,and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.
Brach is an engaged Buddhist specializing in the application of Buddhist teachings to emotional healing. Her 2003 book, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha, focuses on the use of practices such as mindfulness for healing trauma. Her 2013 book, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart, offers practices for tapping into inner peace and wisdom in the midst of difficulty.
In This Interview, Tara Brach and I Discuss…
- The One You Feed parable
- Being kind to the parts of ourselves that are more primitive
- The difference between feelings and thoughts
- Dropping the storyline
- The question of “What am I unwilling to feel?”
- How we have to go through the difficult emotions to get to peace
- The importance of remembering the good
- Not being addicted to suffering
- The habit of looking for what’s wrong
- What’s the moment like if there is no problem
- How we tend to always anticipating a problem
- How we are almost always lost in thought
- Practicing coming into our senses
- Self-compassion as the most important quality on the spiritual path
- Only being taught one type of meditation
- Trying different types of meditation until we find the one that works best for us
- The quality that helps people progress on the path of meditation: intention
- How to deal with numbness
- Tara’s tips on dealing with depression
- How depression hates a moving target
- That depression is not our fault
- Finding refuge in difficult times
- Instead of asking “What’s the Meaning” asking “What matters to me here”
Tara Brach Links
A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other.
One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.
The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”
The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feedThe Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.
This parable goes by many names including:
The Tale of Two Wolves
The Parable of the Two Wolves
Two Wolves
Which Wolf Do You Feed
Which Wolf are You Feeding
Which Wolf Will You Feed
It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.
