Meeting these Times with Courageous Love

Tara Brach

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4.8 • 10.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many recognize that love is the antidote to the suffering in our divided world, yet finding the path to an open heart can feel more challenging than ever. This talk explores the full spectrum of love—both tender and open, as well as fierce, protective, and engaged. When we cultivate this courageous love, we are able to hold even those we see as enemies in our hearts. In its true form, this love is not passive or soft. As Martin Luther King Jr. described, it is a powerful soul force, capable of bringing healing and liberation to all beings.

In this talk, Tara explores:

how mindfulness serves as a powerful tool for cultivating compassionate awareness
the importance of unarming our heart as a pathway to Radical Acceptance,
the deep connection between courage and an awake heart
the true connection that arises when we fully arrive in the moment.
the power of the “sacred pause”—how presence allows us to open to love in difficult times

Transcript

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0:00.0	Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.
0:06.0	To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste friends. Thank you for being here.
0:31.5	Last week, the Insight meditation community of Washington offered a free two-day event. It was called When the Rubber
0:39.3	Hits the Road and it's really how to apply Buddhist teachings to difficult times. So it was a live
0:46.5	online event and I want to share with you the talk I offered to those who gathered. The talk
0:53.0	was called disarming our heart, the pathway of radical compassion.
0:58.4	So in this, I talk personally about some of my own process of disarming, of choosing love.
1:05.7	And we look at how, especially in our current world, our loving needs to include both the great tenderness,
1:14.8	really being all-inclusive, and also a fierce dedication to protecting the vulnerable.
1:22.5	We examine ways we perpetuate separation with others and we close with a meditation, a practice of disarming,
1:30.6	so we're meditating on someone we care about but have some conflict with, feel some dividedness
1:36.8	with. So my friends, there is much suffering that arises in creating a bad other. You know, we know it,
1:48.0	whether it's the chronic resentment toward a family member or the hatred of political figures
1:56.0	or a group of humans we find threatening. So much suffering. We offer our attention to this for our own
2:05.4	freedom and also for the healing of the world. So thank you for being here and being part of this.
2:14.5	It just feels so important that we're gathering right now.
2:20.4	And I don't think I anticipated just what it would feel like.
2:26.3	Such a time for us to see, okay, what does it really mean to meet our world with courage,
2:32.5	with an awake heart.
2:34.9	And I've heard from, you know, I've heard from a lot of people over these last months with
2:39.4	their hopes and fears of the world, and I'll admit more on the fear distress side of the
2:46.1	equation, right?
	...

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