The Power of Inquiry in Spiritual Awakening - Part 1

Part I - In spiritual life, inquiry arises from our deep yearning to understand reality, and it involves bringing an interested, engaged attention to our immediate experience.  These two talks explore how inquiry serves emotional healing by focusing on difficult "stuck" places, how inquiry enables us to become more intimate and understanding of others, and in the deepest way, how inquiry can reveal the deepest truth of what we are…our true nature. The talks include several guided reflections that can enrich your meditation practice and serve spiritual awakening.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation begins with collecting attention with the breath, and awakens us to the experience of aliveness and inner space by scanning the body.  We then open to receive all the senses in awake awareness, and to inhabiting that boundless receptive awareness that is our home.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

Shifting our relationship with fear is central to the evolution of consciousness. Our suffering arises when our thoughts, feelings and sense of identity are shaped by fear. As we learn to attend to fear with mindfulness and care, we discover the vast tender presence that has room for the waves, and can fully cherish this life.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

We spend many moments in a trance, time traveling to the past and future, lost in a virtual reality. This meditation helps us collect our attention with our breath, awaken through the body, and open the senses. We then rest in the wakeful openness that includes changing experience, aware of the mystery and vividness of being Here.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

As humans face the darkness of fear, violence, and division, something else is also stirring: an awakening field of courage, care, and connection.  This talk explores the primitive survival strategies that keep us in trance and the evolutionary currents of awakening that return us to belonging. Through reflection and practice, we are invited to nurture the river of love and justice moving through our world, and to step forward—together—into beloved community.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation awakens the senses with a mindful scanning of the body, establishes an anchor for presence, and invites us to arrive again and again, deepening the pathway home. When difficult or intense experience arises, the practice is to learn to open to what is here with a clear, allowing and kind attention (a favorite from the archives).   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

While it's natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence.  This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to thoughts, resisting feelings, holding tight to beliefs and armoring our heart. We look at how egoic controlling manifests individually and as a society; the process of awakening from exclusive identification with a separate ego/self; what it means to die into a larger reality and the similarities of psychedelics and meditation in the process of letting go. The gift of releasing the grip of controlling is true freedom; inhabiting the intrinsic beauty of our beings, and having our lives be an expression of creativity, wisdom and love.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

In this guided meditation, we explore how true peace and happiness arise not from controlling life, but from gently opening to it. When we meet our moment-to-moment experience with tenderness and awareness, the heart naturally softens into ease. This practice begins by awakening presence in the body and senses—feeling the breath, sensations, and sounds as they are. From there, we widen into a spacious, kind awareness that includes the changing flow of thoughts, emotions, and experience. Rather than pushing away or judging what arises, we learn to rest in a welcoming heart. This meditation supports: ✨ Mindfulness and embodied presence  ✨ Emotional healing through non-judgment ✨ Self-compassion and inner peace ✨ Nervous system regulation ✨ Living with greater openness and love We close with a short verse from poet Dorothy Hunt, "Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment," reminding us that freedom is found right here—in allowing life to be just as it is. ________________ Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music Support Tara's Work: If you find value in these talks and wish to support their continuation, please consider making a donation. Your generosity helps us keep these teachings available to all. Visit: https://www.tarabrach.com/donation/ 

While it's natural to try to control our life experience, our chronic controlling cuts us off from presence and obscures the loving awareness that is our essence.  This series of talks explores how we can let go in four key domains of controlling: clinging to thoughts, resisting feelings, holding tight to beliefs and armoring our heart. We look at how egoic controlling manifests individually and as a society; the process of awakening from exclusive identification with a separate ego/self; what it means to die into a larger reality and the similarities of psychedelics and meditation in the process of letting go. The gift of releasing the grip of controlling is true freedom; inhabiting the intrinsic beauty of our beings, and having our lives be an expression of creativity, wisdom and love.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music

This meditation begins with a period of relaxing and collecting our attention with intentional long, deep breathing. We then deepen embodied presence, and widen to the awareness that includes sounds, sensations, feelings, breath, and all experience. When the mind drifts from this open, awake awareness, we gently return, re-relaxing and resting in an easeful, alert presence. Recorded at Tara's Wednesday night class, the meditation ends with a sense of melting into community – relaxed and alert.   Our introduction music is from "Opening" by Adrienne Torf, © 2025 ABT Music