Stories That Imprison Our Heart - Part 1

Tara Brach

Tara, Dharma, Selfhelp, Talks, Spiritual, Buddhist, Insight, Audio, Tarabrach, Mindfulness, Rain, Psychology, Compassion, Vipassana, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Meditation, Guided, Brach, Buddhism, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 10.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our suffering arises from fear-based stories that are often outside our awareness. These include stories of our deficiency or importance, of being a victim, of being unseen or unloved, of facing failure or rejection. This is true collectively too. We have shared stories of bad “others” that fuel wars, shared stories of the value of continued growth in consumption and production that destroy our earth, shared stories of our human right to enslave and violate other animals. We have the capacity to bring the stories that separate and imprison us into the light of awareness, and with great compassion, loosen their grip. These two talks look at the ways fear-based stories create suffering, and how awakening from them reveals the freedom of our true, and universal, belonging.

Includes a story from Frank Ostaseki's new book, The Five Invitations - https://fiveinvitations.com/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.
0:06.0	To make a donation, please. Thank you for being here.
0:34.0	So, a question. Have you ever had the sense that you're preparing to live but you're
0:40.9	not actually living your life?
0:44.3	And I ask because there are certain basic truths I have to keep reawakening to.
0:49.5	And when they're clear, it's like how could I ever forget?
0:53.4	And one is that when I'm thinking, when
0:56.3	I'm in my story about what needs to get done, when I'm worrying and planning, I'm not
1:01.2	fully inhabiting my life. It's like real life is down the road. And related, when I'm in some
1:10.4	way struggling emotionally, if I'm caught in believing something
1:14.6	that's smaller than the truth. Something is wrong with me, something's wrong with others.
1:19.6	In those moments, what I most need is to step out of the stories and the thoughts and come back to presence. If I want to understand reality, if I want
1:31.4	to love fully, I need to step out of stories and thoughts. I need to experience life directly.
1:38.5	If I want to inhabit the truth of who I am, I need to step beyond thoughts and stories. So you're
1:43.7	getting the theme,
1:45.3	that most moments of life experiences filter through the idea of what's happening, through good
1:52.5	and bad and right and wrong and expectations and judgments, and we're a slave to thoughts.
2:00.2	There was a story of a man who wrote to the IRS and said,
2:04.4	I haven't been able to sleep because two years ago I cheated and failed to pay quite a bit on my taxes,
2:09.8	so I've enclosed an anonymous cashier's check for $3,000.
2:14.8	If I still can't sleep, I'll send the rest.
2:19.3	On the spiritual path, the movement is from head to this heart and body and awareness, and that is the essential shift for freedom.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 12 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tara Brach, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tara Brach and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.