Quote

When we put down ideas of what life should be like, we are free to wholeheartedly say yes to our life as it is.

Tara Brach

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tara Brach
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 17
Peace Activist
Psychologist
Teacher
Ideas
Life
Like
Wholeheartedly
Free

More quotes by Tara Brach

Image
Meditation is evolution's strategy to bring out our full potential.
Tara Brach
Image
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
Image
I want to accept myself completely, just as I am.
Tara Brach
Image
The muscles used to make a smile actually send a biochemical message to our nervous system that it is safe to relax the flight of freeze response.
Tara Brach
Image
I think of desire as the essence that brings forth the whole universe.
Tara Brach
Image
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.
Tara Brach
Image
There's healthy attachment, like with a mother and child. It's biologically part of our survival.
Tara Brach
Image
This is for anyone reading this who wants to explore it. Recognize the thought, Afraid of loving, then gently put your hand on your heart to send a message of kindness.
Tara Brach
Image
You can think of spiritual practice as a kind of spiritual re-parenting ... You're offering yourself the two qualities that make up good parenting: understanding - seeing yourself for who you truly are - and relating to what you see with unconditional love.
Tara Brach
Image
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
Image
Relaxation is the doorway to both wisdom and compassion.
Tara Brach
Image
The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.
Tara Brach
Image
There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.
Tara Brach
Image
Presence is not some exotic state that we need to search for or manufacture. In the simplest terms, it is the felt sense of wakefulness, openness, and tenderness that arises when we are fully here and now with our experience.
Tara Brach
Image
When desire for a certain person's attention becomes an I have to have kind of grasping, then identity gets organized around needing that and it becomes very solid and sticky. That causes suffering because we're not inhabiting the fullness of who we are, we're fixated and contracted on life being a certain way.
Tara Brach
Image
In the collective psyche it is being understood... that we can cultivate wisdom and compassion.
Tara Brach
Image
Even a few moments of offering lovingkindness can reconnect you with the purity of your loving heart.
Tara Brach
Image
If attachment then carries forward in a way that's not healthy, we need to let it be there without making it wrong and bring as compassionate and honest attention to it as possible. Honor that this is part of being human, but it's important to know when it's getting in the way.
Tara Brach
Image
Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns.
Tara Brach
Image
We wait for things to be different in order to feel okay with life. As long as we keep attaching our happiness to the external events of our lives, which are ever changing, we’ll always be left waiting for it.
Tara Brach