Podcast Summary: Tara Brach – The Liberating Power of Conscious Intention (Part 2)

Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Tara Brach
Theme: Deepening our understanding and application of conscious intention as a path to healing, awakening, and living aligned with what matters most.

Episode Overview

In this second part of her teachings on intention, Tara Brach explores how conscious intention shapes our experience and guides us toward healing and awakening. The episode blends psychological insight, practical exercises, and Buddhist wisdom to empower listeners to recognize and embody their deepest values. Through stories, reflection, and gentle humor, Tara guides us in seeing both our habitual, fear-based intentions and our heart’s sincere longings, emphasizing the liberating power of pausing, noticing, and choosing what matters most.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Central Role of Intention in Shaping Our Lives

Timestamps: 01:16–06:40

• Intention as "Remembering to Remember": Tara shares a humorous anecdote about absent-mindedness in the shower (01:16), illustrating how easy it is to lose presence.
• Crucial Question: “What most matters to my heart?”—Repeated inquiry into this question can reveal our deepest values and bring us home to presence and love (02:00).
• Quote: “As we remember… Oh, what I most care about is presence. What I most care about is love, or connection, or creativity—there’s a waking up.” – Tara (02:07)
• Buddhist View: Everything arises from intention, often unconsciously; it is the source of our experience (05:42).

“The Buddha put it that our whole life comes out of the tip of intention, everything, all of our experience.” – Tara (05:00)

2. Two Domains of Intention: Suffering vs. Awakening

Timestamps: 06:40–11:25

• Intentions That Cause Suffering:
  Rooted in fear, clinging, unmet needs; these intentions become habitual, leading to cycles like defensiveness, avoidance, or aggression (07:18).
• Intentions That Serve Healing/Awakening:
  Stem from the heart—love, connection, understanding.
• Societal Influences:
  Family and society reinforce fear-based intentions.
  Memorable Quote:
  “One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love.” – Butch Hancock, quoted by Tara (09:31)

3. Reflective Practice: Noticing Everyday Intentions

Timestamps: 11:25–16:28

• Guided Reflection: Tara leads a practice for bringing awareness to intentions behind interactions—with others, at work, and with oneself.
• Non-judgmental Mindset: Encourages curiosity and gentle observation.
• Key Insight:
  “Awareness itself is the healer. Just noticing will help you come more and more into having intention be a real compass of the heart.” – Tara (16:28)

4. Pathways for Recognizing and Living Our Deepest Intention

Timestamps: 17:07–25:10

• Daily and Situational Intention Setting:

  • “Bookending” the day with intention (morning and night review).
  • Setting intention for specific events or conversations (18:26).

• Colleague’s Framing:
  “Love, what would you have me do today?” – Franco Stosteschi, quoted by Tara (18:09)

• Neuroscience Support:
  Mentally rehearsing actions (setting intention in advance) can create neural change, as powerfully as the actual behavior (19:03–20:52).

• Story:
  Sitting in silence with a grieving friend, resisting the urge to fill discomfort with words—embodying presence (21:50–23:28).

• Practical Flags:
  Use moments like pressing send on a charged email or recurring conflict as reminders to return to intention (23:49–25:10).

“It’s so powerful to ask those questions, to slow it down. It’s a way of interrupting old patterns so that we have a choice to live more from our heart.” – Tara (25:10)

5. Interrupting Old Patterns: Real-Life Application

Timestamps: 25:29–27:47

• Story:
  Man struggling with anger—developing a mantra (“Not my will, my heart’s will”) to pause and realign with heart’s deepest intention, interrupting habit-driven reactions (26:41–27:19).
• Practice Repetition:
  “Whatever we practice gets stronger.” (27:47)

6. The Main Challenge: Accessing Deep Intention when Triggered

Timestamps: 27:47–33:23

• When Fear-Based Intention Dominates:
  In moments of anger, craving, or strong emotion, access to our deep (soul) intention is lost.

• “It’s not what the self wants; it’s what the deepest self wants. And it takes some diving.”—D.H. Lawrence, quoted by Tara (29:02).

• Two Key Understandings for "Diving":

  1. Behind every intention—no matter how misguided—is a desire to survive or thrive. Even actions we regret are life trying to love life, just confused (30:42).
  2. Self-blame and shame keep us stuck. Healing begins with compassion and forgiveness.

7. RAIN Practice: Compassionate Self-Inquiry

Timestamps: 33:23–42:13

• Story:
  Meditation student using RAIN to transform self-hatred around addiction—shifting from shame to compassion and accessing the true wish to live in presence (33:23–36:15).

• RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture): Tara guides listeners through a self-reflective RAIN process to touch the roots of self-judgment, feel the underlying need, and respond with kindness (36:15–42:13).

  “Shaming and blaming was keeping him from that. Once it wasn’t there… he knew he was home when he got in touch with that intention.” – Tara (35:51)

• Key Insight:
  “There’s no coming home until we release (blame/shame)…with ‘it’s not my fault,’ it actually opens us to the possibility of real change, real transformation.” (42:13)

8. Impermanence and the Urgency of Deep Intention

Timestamps: 45:00–47:27

• Quote:
  “How I live today is how I live my life.” (45:00)
• Reflection:
  Considering life’s impermanence: If this is your last moment with someone you care for, or your last moment alive, what would your intention be? (46:05–47:05)
• Regret and Appreciation:
  We postpone living from our deepest intention, acting as if life will go on forever.

9. Story: Itzhak Perlman and Playing with What’s Left

Timestamps: 47:27–49:26

• Anecdote:
  Violinist Itzhak Perlman, after breaking a string at a concert, composed anew—“Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.” (48:42–49:26)
• Lesson:
  We are all “playing with broken strings”; our deep intention allows us to bring our full heart to life (49:40–50:09).

10. Closing Wisdom: The Sign of True Intention

Timestamps: 50:09–53:58

• Recurring Poetic Guidance:
  “Ask the divine for love and ask again. For I have learned that every heart will get what it prays for most.”—Hafez, quoted by Tara (50:09, 50:24, 53:41)
• What Matters Most:
  Across spiritual traditions, what enables deep unfolding is sincere intention to awaken to love, presence, and truth (51:28).
• Colleague’s Message:
  “Be kind. Be kind to yourselves, to one another, to all living things, and to our dear Mother Earth, and let that kindness blossom into action.” (51:35)
• Final Reflection:
  What would your last message be to yourself and loved ones? Honor your deepest intention—this is home (53:18–53:41).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On remembering intention:
  “The real challenge we face is remembering to remember. And this is where intention becomes so crucial on the spiritual path.” (01:35)

• On conflicting intentions:
  “We know we have actually often mixed, conflicting intentions…” (09:54)

• On the healing power of noticing:
  “Awareness itself is the healer…intention becomes a real compass of the heart.” (16:28)

• On living from deep intention:
  “The sign of a true intention is sincerity…Our true intention has to do with manifesting our full potential for love and awareness.” (42:52–45:00)

• On impermanence:
  “How I live today is how I live my life.” (45:00)

• On compassion and healing:
  “Recovery starts with love. It starts with forgiveness.” (32:57)

Timestamps for Core Sections

• [01:16] Story on presence, shower anecdote, and the question “What matters most?”
• [04:59] Buddhist psychology: All experience flows from intention.
• [09:31] Butch Hancock quote on societal mixed messages.
• [11:25–16:28] Guided practice: Noticing the intentions beneath daily actions.
• [19:03] Harvard research on the impact of mental rehearsal/intention.
• [21:50–23:28] Story of sitting in silence with a grieving friend.
• [26:41] Story: Client’s mantra “Not my will, my heart’s will.”
• [29:02] “It’s not what the self wants, it’s what the deepest self wants” – D.H. Lawrence.
• [33:23] Story: Meditation student using RAIN.
• [36:15–42:13] Guided RAIN meditation for self-judgment.
• [45:00] “How I live today is how I live my life.”
• [48:42] Itzhak Perlman story.
• [50:09, 53:41] “Every heart will get what it prays for most.”

Summary of Tone and Language

Tara Brach’s language is gentle, compassionate, and laced with subtle humor. Her tone is encouraging, warm, and non-judgmental, inviting deep self-reflection and extending kindness both inward and outward.

Conclusion

This episode powerfully illustrates that conscious intention is the key to spiritual freedom and living fully. Tara Brach encourages a daily practice of noticing, returning, and renewing our commitment to what matters most—offering practical guidance, rich stories, and meditative reflection so listeners can bring presence, compassion, and love to every moment.

Resources

• For more meditations, teachings, and support, visit tarabrach.com
• Further reading: Tara Brach’s books Radical Acceptance and True Refuge