Quote

Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.

Tara Brach

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Tara Brach
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 17
Peace Activist
Psychologist
Teacher
World
Loses
Unworthiness
Effort
Trance
Wrong
Initiate
Moment
Reacting
Pain
Shrinks
Moments
Combat
Something
Buddhist
Believe
Lose
Initiates

More quotes by Tara Brach

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Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience. We begin to trust in our natural intelligence, in our naturally wise heart, in our capacity to open to whatever arises.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach
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In intimate relationships, if we start trying to be more real, it's very scary.
Tara Brach
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I registered the dukkha of self-aversion with such clarity that I knew there was no freedom unless I could love this life without holding back. This didn't mean I was going to ignore my flaws and stop seeking to improve what I could. But in the deepest way, I was not going to fixate on the conclusion that something was wrong with me.
Tara Brach
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But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach
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If we're not open to losing, we're not open to loving.
Tara Brach
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Most of us grew up with a very damaging story that something is wrong with us. Gradually - or as in my case, suddenly - we become resolved not to believe this anymore. It takes a dedicated practice to follow up on that resolution, because the conditioning is very strong to keep generating self-demeaning stories.
Tara Brach
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If you can, do a gratitude practice: Each day write down three things you're grateful for. There are different ways to do this. You can have a gratitude buddy, someone with whom, at the end of the day, you exchange messages listing these three things you are grateful for. Also, you can journal it or reflect on it silently.
Tara Brach
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Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.
Tara Brach
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The way to develop the habit of savoring is to pause when something is beautiful and good and catches our attention - the sound of rain, the look of the night sky - the glow in a child's eyes, or when we witness some kindness. Pause... then totally immerse in the experience of savoring it.
Tara Brach
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We're so used to presenting ourselves and getting approval according to our achievements that it's difficult to be authentic and trust that we'll be accepted just as we are.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach
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I think the reason Buddhism and Western psychology are so compatible is that Western psychology helps to identify the stories and the patterns in our personal lives, but what Buddhist awareness training does is it actually allows the person to develop skills to stay in what's going on.
Tara Brach
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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.
Tara Brach
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I would say both Western psychology and Eastern paths would recognize that we get caught up in feeling like a separate self and an unworthy self.
Tara Brach
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If there's a demand of being together in a certain way, those expectations and judgements take away from that space and create an edginess and a cramped-ness to the relationship.
Tara Brach
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Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.
Tara Brach
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We, like the Mother of the World, become the compassionate presence that can hold, with tenderness, the rising and passing waves of suffering.
Tara Brach
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Stopping the endless pursuit of getting somewhere else is the perhaps most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.
Tara Brach