Tara Brach

This guided meditation offers a pathway to quieting our mind and calming anxiety. We begin with long deep breathing, and with the breath, engage the image of a smile and relax through the body. Then we practice resting in relaxed awareness, allowing waves of thoughts, feelings and sensations to come and go. The meditation ends with a beautiful verse from poet Philip Booth.
 
Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Most of us value honesty yet are not aware of how regularly we avoid facing what's difficult inside us, and how we are less than truthful with others. This talk explores the practice of radical self-honesty as the grounds of being more honest with others, and bringing more love and freedom to our lives.
 
Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Vipassana, also known as insight meditation, is training in bringing a clear mindful attention to our moment to moment experience. We begin by relaxing through the body and then resting attention with the breath - or some other sensory anchor - and allowing the mind to settle. Then we open to whatever is predominant or calling our attention - sensations, emotions, sounds - meeting each arising experience with a clear, kind attention. The gift of this process is discovering balance in the midst of the changing flow, and gaining deep insight into the nature of reality.
 
Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

In this talk, we explore how compassion can arise in the midst of conflict—within our lives and in the larger world. In a conversation with Paul Gilbert, moderated by Rick Hansen, we reflect on how our evolutionary conditioning—especially the brain's threat system—fuels fear, shame, and the reflex to see others as "other."
Drawing on Buddhist psychology, we look at how a sense of separation and the stories of blame keep us caught in reactivity—and how we can begin to shift out of reactivity into presence, understanding, and care. This talk includes a guided reflection for working with conflict, helping us contact the vulnerability beneath anger, reopen the heart, and widen the circle of belonging.
 
Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

If we can recognize thoughts as thoughts, it becomes possible to open from virtual to living reality. This meditation guides us in awakening the senses and discovering the freedom - the awake space of Being that is beyond the confines of thoughts.
 
Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music