Quote

Emotions are the interaction of thoughts and of sensations in the body.

Tara Brach

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tara Brach
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: May 17
Peace Activist
Psychologist
Teacher
Interaction
Sensations
Emotions
Thoughts
Emotion
Body

More quotes by Tara Brach

Image
In intimate relationships, if we start trying to be more real, it's very scary.
Tara Brach
Image
My first book, 'Radical Acceptance', grew out of the suffering of feeling personally deficient and unworthy. Because most of us are so quick to turn against ourselves, the teachings and practices of radical acceptance continue as a strong current in 'True Refuge': nurturing a forgiving, understanding heart is a basic step on the path.
Tara Brach
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Our greatest longing is to be intimate.
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
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
Image
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
Image
The renowned seventh-century Zen master Seng-tsan taught that true freedom is being without anxiety about imperfection.
Tara Brach
Image
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.
Tara Brach
Image
In the collective psyche it is being understood... that we can cultivate wisdom and compassion.
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
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
Image
When someone says to us, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, Darling, I care about your suffering, a deep healing begins.
Tara Brach
Image
I think of desire as the essence that brings forth the whole universe.
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
I speak a lot about what I call the trance of unworthiness which is really epidemic in our culture, this sense of I'm not enough, or something's wrong with me. Most of us have some level of it because our culture has all these standards (handed down through our families) of what it means to be okay.
Tara Brach
Image
Underneath the stress is fear, and the biggest is our own personal fear of failure.
Tara Brach
Image
I think it's possible to have experiences of love without attachment, but I think part of our conditioning is to grasp at times, especially when there are unmet needs. It's part of our nervous system to hold on to where we think those needs will be met.
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...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.
Tara Brach