Podcast Summary

Desire and Addiction: Voices of Longing Calling You Home, Part 1

Host: Tara Brach
Date: September 12, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Tara Brach explores the nature of desire, longing, and addiction—framing them as universal human experiences that, when left unconscious, can lead to suffering and disconnection. Through personal stories, teachings from Buddhist and psychological perspectives, and practical exercises, Tara guides listeners toward relating more wisely to "wanting mind," ultimately inviting us to recognize how our deepest longings can actually call us home to presence, belonging, and a sense of wholeness.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Desire and Addiction ([00:01]–[05:00])

• Tara opens by referencing an Alcoholics Anonymous saying:

  “One drink may make you feel like a new person, and then the new person has to have a drink.” ([00:05])

• She emphasizes that habits and addictions, ranging from minor to life-threatening, share a root energy: grasping, or holding tightly to experiences, roles, identities, or objects.
• Tara notes that in the modern world, energies of grasping and addiction are intensifying, impacting us both individually and collectively (e.g., overconsumption, addiction to fossil fuels, plastics).
• Importantly, this is not a personal failing but a universal trait of the human nervous system.

“We can change harmful habits. Individually and collectively, we have that potential. And what enables us to do it is a love for life and a willingness to deepen attention.” ([02:55])

2. Wanting Mind: Everyday Longing and Its Roots ([03:34]–[15:00])

• Tara shares a story about a mother and her four-year-old daughter. When the mother focuses on future tasks, the daughter says:

  “Okay, Mom, but let’s care about now.” ([03:38])

• This highlights how often we are “leaning forward,” wanting the next moment to be different—an energy that, when strong, becomes addiction.
• Desire is both natural and necessary—it is the existential urge for all beings to manifest, to exist, and to connect.

“Desire is natural. In fact, it’s the existential urge to be and to manifest and to take form and to exist. And it’s intrinsic to all life forms.” ([07:48])

• When our basic needs (e.g., being seen and loved) aren’t met, we fixate on substitutes (e.g., food, possessions, achievements).
• Story about a “Zen sugar high” chocolate Buddha highlights Western consumerism applied to spiritual longing ([09:33]).

“It’s not at all about getting rid of desire. It’s really how we’re relating to desire and whether our identity gets hooked by desire...” ([10:46])

3. The Trance of “If Only” Mind ([12:28]–[22:00])

• Tara uses stories and humor (e.g., goldfish in the ocean, man asking God for a bridge to Hawaii) to illustrate how we fixate on substitutes and overlook what’s already here.
• Research shows substitutes don’t bring lasting happiness; recurring reference to “if only” thinking.

“Thoreau said it beautifully. He said, it’s like we spend our whole life fishing only to realize it wasn’t fish we were after.” ([16:38])

• Invokes teachings by Sri Nisargadatta:

  “The problem is not desire, it’s that your desires are too small, too narrow.” ([17:22])

• Practical signs of “wanting mind”: body tightness, restless thoughts, impulsive behavior ([18:29]).

“When a pickpocket sees a saint, they see the saint’s pocket.” ([19:37])

• Highlights how self-judgment and shame around wantings make us feel even smaller and more disconnected.

4. Reflection: Recognizing Wanting Mind ([19:59]–[27:00])

• Tara leads a reflection exercise, inviting listeners to identify a current place of wanting and to “model” the wanting posture ([20:30]).
• Notable questions she asks during the guided exercise:
  • “How are you relating to yourself when you’re wanting?”
  • “Do you like yourself when you’re wanting?”
  • “What’s your heart like in terms of relating to others?”

“The purpose right now is not to judge wanting, but become familiar with how wanting shrinks us, tightens us, removes us from a real relational field of connection, of true connection.” ([23:28])

• Emphasizes that wanting is usually accompanied by aversion, especially toward oneself, and the word “needy” carries shame.

5. Mindfulness Tools: RAIN Practice ([27:00]–[38:00])

• Tara introduces the RAIN practice:

  • Recognize what is present
  • Allow the experience
  • Investigate the feeling
  • Nurture with kindness

• Key move: making a “U-turn” from the object of desire to the feeling itself ([31:48]).

• Shares a retreat story of a man longing for a lost relationship; through RAIN, he traces his desire from wanting a particular person to a longing for belonging, warmth, and light already present within him ([32:26]).

“Once you have made this U turn, you can begin to investigate and bring a non judging presence to wanting mind.” ([32:00])

• Emphasizes self-forgiveness for desires: “If you judge the fact that you’re wanting her, that’s only going to dig it in deeper.” ([36:34])

6. The Deeper Gift of Longing ([38:00]–[47:00])

• Desire points us beyond substitutes, back to our own hearts:

  “If we learn to really trace them back, we discover that they’re the voice of loving awareness calling us home.” ([39:54])

• Quotes from Rumi and Sri Nisargadatta highlight the wisdom of going deeper than the surface object of desire.

“All you need is already within you. Only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self condemnation and self distrust are grievous errors... make love of yourself perfect. Deny yourself nothing. Give yourself infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them. You are beyond.”
—Sri Nisargadatta ([41:06])

• Encourages listeners to use these weeks to “bring wanting above the line” into awareness.
• Uses the humorous example:

  “What do we want? Mindfulness! When do we want it? Now!” ([44:25])

7. Guided Meditation: Tracing Wanting to Its Source ([47:00]–end)

• Tara leads a detailed meditation:
  • Recognize and allow the presence of wanting.
  • Withdraw attention from the object to the sensation of wanting itself—how it feels in the body.
  • Inquire: “If I get what I want, what does it really give me? What is the deepest gift?”
  • Often, tracing back reveals our longing is for belonging, wholeness, being, or love—all experiences already accessible within.

“Isn’t it true that what you’re longing for is already here? You wouldn’t be able to even touch into it if it wasn’t already here.” ([50:55])

• Closes with a Rilke poem about wanting deeply and “diving into your increasing depths, where life calmly gives out its own secret…” ([52:20])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Universal Human Grasping:

  “In both Buddhism and Western psychology, the understanding of grasping, of holding on tightly to experiences... it’s a natural part of being human. It's not a mistake...” ([00:58])

• On Consumerist Substitutes:

  “Get Zen. Get a Zen sugar high and dose of antioxidants with solid dark chocolate Buddha, $110 from Neiman Marcus.” ([09:33])

• On Neurobiology:

  “Every life form has its urge for being alive. And you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for desire, and neither would I.” ([07:59])

• On the “If Only” Mind:

  “We have our if only, our idea of what’s going to give us happiness.” ([14:24])

• Research Finding:

  “Thirteen studies on lottery winners: they’re ultimately, over time, no happier than non-lottery winners. And paraplegics usually become as content as people who can walk.” ([16:55])

• On Tracing Back Desire:

  “You recognize and allow that’s going on. And then you make the U turn and you bring back the attention to the actual feeling of wanting. You withdraw the attention from the object and make a U turn to the inner experience. This is the life changing move.” ([31:48])

• Sri Nisargadatta Quote:

  “All you need is already within you. Only you must approach yourself with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-distrust are grievous errors...” ([41:06])

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:01] – Opening and AA quote: Grasping as a human trait
• [03:34] – Mother-daughter story: “Let’s care about now”
• [07:48] – Desire as natural, existential urge
• [09:33] – Chocolate Buddha story: Consumer substitutes for real longing
• [14:24] – “If only” mind and the delusion of substitutes
• [16:38] – Thoreau quote on fishing and existential longing
• [19:59] – Signs of wanting mind, reflection exercise
• [27:00] – Introduction of RAIN; making the “U turn”
• [31:48] – Somatic investigation of desire
• [32:26] – Retreat story: tracing back longing to belonging
• [41:06] – Nisargadatta quote: All you need is within you
• [47:00] – Guided meditation: tracing wanting to its source
• [52:20] – Closing Rilke poem

Takeaways & Tone

Tara’s tone is compassionate, humorous, and practical. The episode invites listeners into gentle self-inquiry, offering both deep insights and concrete tools for meeting desire—from the everyday to the addictive—not as a problem to eradicate, but as a voice guiding us back toward presence and genuine connection. She frames the spiritual path not as eliminating want, but as relating wisely—through gentle awareness—to what is truly alive in our hearts.