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Observing desire without acting on it enlarges our freedom to choose how we live.

Tara Brach

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Tara Brach
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 17
Peace Activist
Psychologist
Teacher
Desire
Live
Without
Enlarges
Observing
Choose
Acting
Freedom

More quotes by Tara Brach

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But this revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime.
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There are stories we take on from our culture, and there are stories based on our own personal history. Some of those stories lock us in limiting beliefs and lead to suffering, and there are others that can move us toward freedom.
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Everything we love goes. So to be able to grieve that loss, to let go, to have that grief be absolutely full, is the only way to have our heart be full and open.
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If our hearts are ready for anything, we can open to our inevitable losses, and to the depths of our sorrow. We can grieve our lost loves, our lost youth, our lost health, our lost capacities. This is part of our humanness, part of the expression of our love for life.
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Meditation helps us to get out of our thoughts about the future and really be in the present moment.
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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.
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Offer some gesture of kindness to yourself. Sometimes it's just a message, to say: It's okay. You're going to be okay. We've been through this before. The intention is reassurance, that you are not alone and you can do this. It is the most powerful way to come out of what I call the trance of unworthiness.
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As I noticed feelings and thoughts appear and disappear, it became increasingly clear that they were just coming and going on their own. . . . There was no sense of a self owning them.
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I knew I could hold myself with that absolute love and compassion.
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Underneath the stress is fear, and the biggest is our own personal fear of failure.
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Unless we're completely awake, have a degree of that. We tense against love and hold on in a way that doesn't let it flow. When that's really strong, the key piece to freeing our hearts is self-compassion.
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Mindfulness is a pause - the space between stimulus and response: that's where choice lies.
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The main thing going on around intimacy is that we've developed a lot of strategies so we'll be a desirable package.
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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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The trance of unworthiness keeps the sweetness of belonging out of reach. The path to the sweetness of belonging, is acceptance - acceptance of ourselves and acceptance of others without judgment.
Tara Brach
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We are mindful of desire when we experience it with an embodied awareness, recognizing the sensations and thoughts of wanting as arising and passing phenomena. While this isn't easy, as we cultivate the clear seeing and compassion of Radical Acceptance, we discover we can open fully to this natural force, and remain free in its midst.
Tara Brach
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I think of desire as the essence that brings forth the whole universe.
Tara Brach
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When we're awake in our bodies and sense, the world comes alive. Wisdom, creativity, and love are discovered as we relax and awaken through our bodies.
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.
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Happiness lies not in finding what is missing, but in finding what is present.
Tara Brach