The great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground shakes terribly beneath youโwhen thereโs a loss that will alter your life foreverโyou can still trust that you will find your way home. This is possible because youโve touched the timeless love and awareness that are intrinsic to who you are.
Tara BrachWe'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 BrachIn any moment, no matter how lost we feel, we can take refuge in presence and love. We need only pause, breathe, and open to the experience of aliveness within us. In that wakeful openness, we come home to the peace and freedom of our natural awareness.
Tara BrachThe process of radical acceptance is to accept that a story has appeared in the mind, and then deepen the attention to see clearly what's happening in the body, to regard those feelings and sensations with kindness and acceptance, and to notice how they come and go.
Tara BrachThe Buddha never intended to make desire itself the problem. When he said craving causes suffering, he was referring not to our natural inclination as living beings to have wants and needs, but to our habit of clinging to experience that must, by nature, pass away.
Tara BrachThe great gift of a spiritual path is coming to trust that you can find a way to true refuge. You realize that you can start right where you are, in the midst of your life, and find peace in any circumstance. Even at those moments when the ground shakes terribly beneath youโwhen thereโs a loss that will alter your life foreverโyou can still trust that you will find your way home. This is possible because youโve touched the timeless love and awareness that are intrinsic to who you are.
Tara Brach