Podcast Summary:

Tara Brach – Trusting the Path: A Conversation on Refuge & Compassion
Guests: Tara Brach, Ajahn Kovilo, Ajahn Nisabho
Date: October 2, 2025

Overview

This episode features Tara Brach in heartfelt conversation with Buddhist monastics Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho. The exchange explores finding refuge and compassion amid personal and societal turmoil, weaving together Tara’s spiritual biography, practical teachings like the RAIN meditation, and reflections on healing, equanimity, and spiritual growth. With both warmth and humor, the discussion offers practical tools for self-compassion, mindfulness, and authentic connection—anchoring listeners in the wisdom of both Eastern and Western paths.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Living the Dharma in Troubling Times

• The Call of the Moment: Tara reflects on how contemporary global unrest, mistrust, and suffering require spiritual practitioners to “resource inwardly” and “bring compassion in action” to the world.
  • “If we're not disturbed in some way by the world, we're not paying attention. But that doesn’t mean we should be getting overwhelmed and despairing and lost.” (Tara Brach, 04:24)
  • Urges use of spiritual practice to be present without losing hope or being overwhelmed.
• The importance of linking inner practice with outer action in times of crisis.

2. Navigating Personal Darkness & Finding Refuge

• Tara recounts a personal health crisis, describing a moment of “incredible despair” during an extended hospital stay.
  • Key practice: Remembered the Tibetan phrase “meet your edge and soften.”
  • She describes how turning toward fear with acceptance and compassion, not resistance, allowed her to transform and move beyond it.
  • “Acceptance is the root of love. By accepting and opening, gradually we become the presence that’s open.” (Tara Brach, 10:24)
• Connects this personal lesson to addressing collective suffering: opening to grief, fear, and pain as a pathway to wise, sane response—rather than reactive pain.

3. Tara Brach’s Spiritual Biography

• Early entry through yoga, then deepening via Theravada/Vipassana (mindful awareness, precision in noticing), and Dzogchen (awareness noticing itself).
• Practices and teachings from various traditions became seamlessly integrated.
  • “The Dharma is taught in a blade of grass and in every tradition at this point.” (Tara Brach, 12:03)

4. Faith and the Triple Gem

• Tara describes trusting not a figurehead, but Buddha nature—the innate goodness, awareness, and love within all beings.
  • “My love for the Buddha is mostly love for Buddha nature. The Buddha is an example, but the teaching is: trust that you, too, can wake up to the truth of who you are.” (Tara Brach, 14:02)
  • Shares admiration for ‘audacious’ teachers who embody “the Lion’s Roar”—profound trust in the essential goodness of being.

5. The RAIN Practice – Mindfulness and Compassion

• Tara introduces the RAIN acronym: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture.
  • Born out of personal struggle with self-judgment and guilt while caregiving.
  • “RAIN gave me moments with my mom. And I'm just so grateful. Rain saved my life.” (Tara Brach, 24:32)
  • Encourages RAIN as a tool for addressing negative self-talk, challenging moments, and patterns of judgment.
• Guided RAIN Meditation (25:34–32:27): Tara leads a stepwise practice to combine mindfulness and self-compassion, inviting listeners to gently turn toward self-judgment with curiosity and care.

6. The “Sacred Pause” and News Consumption

• In today’s “virtual reality trance,” Tara highlights the addictive, distressing nature of news and screen time.
  • Shares personal boundaries (“no news Sundays;” only after morning practice, cutoff in evening), emphasizing that deliberate restriction and intention are vital for awakening (34:01–36:22).
  • “It feels like a really relevant question to anybody that's on a spiritual path: how are you navigating times that are designed to addict you, your attention?” (Tara Brach, 34:01)

7. Informal Practices and “The U-Turn”

• Practical advice for daily life: Whenever you notice judgment of others, make the ‘U turn’—shift attention inward to discover the underlying feeling (frequently fear or powerlessness) and ultimately reach caring.
  • “Under any judgment, there's some form of fear…if we can get to our grief, we can get to our caring.” (Tara Brach, 37:58)
  • Example: “Newspaper meditation” during the Iraq war—moving from anger/judgment, to fear, to powerlessness, and finally, to grief and compassion.

8. Balancing Compassion and Equanimity (Upekkha)

• True compassion is deeply felt, embodied, and moves us to action—but has a shadow: burnout, overwhelm.
• True equanimity (upekkha) provides spaciousness and perspective—but its shadow is indifference or dissociation.
  • “We need to have that kind of embodied sense of belonging…and being moved to act…But the shadow side is that it can dip into burnout.” (Tara Brach, 46:59)
• The practice is not balancing but noticing when we swing into compassion fatigue or dissociative equanimity, and bringing the antidote (tenderness or spaciousness) as needed (46:59–50:15).

9. Allowing vs. Active Redirection

• Sometimes, skillful redirection is necessary rather than open allowing, especially when inner states are overwhelming or unskillful patterns are strong.
  • “Sometimes we have to say yes to our no…There's a part of me that says, no, this is too much, and I say yes to that. And then I use whatever regulates emotions.” (Tara Brach, 44:15)

10. Technology and Inner Inquiry

• On the rise of AI as a tool for self-investigation:
  • “The only path to liberation is direct experience, direct realization…there’s no way around building our muscle of paying attention.” (Tara Brach, 53:15)
  • Reveals openness to AI as a facilitator (e.g., good questions, Rain partners), but affirms the primacy of direct, present-moment awareness.

11. Relationships as Spiritual Practice

• Conflict is “not between people, but between needs.”
  • Importance of sacred pause and U-turn within relationships—discovering and sharing vulnerability under reactions, rather than blaming.
  • “When we speak from vulnerability, we actually can foster connection.” (Tara Brach, 57:56)

12. Going Wide or Deep in Practice

• On whether to stick to one tradition or draw from many:
  • “It really depends on your intention…If there’s a practice we feel drawn to, do it enough so that…it’s not your practice, you’re living it from the inside out.” (Tara Brach, 62:17)
  • Encourages settling in one place enough for depth and stability, but also openness to wide inspiration—if it supports true freedom.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On facing fear:
  • “Meet your edge and soften.” (Tara Brach recalls a Tibetan teaching, 07:00)
• On pure presence:
  • “The more I opened, I started becoming the openness that the fear was happening in... The fear became the portal.” (Tara Brach, 08:40)
• On practicing RAIN:
  • “Sometimes it takes two minutes. You can do a light rain shower or a more drawn out one…It’s not a one shot.” (Tara Brach, 24:32)
• On the true ‘refuge’ and Buddha nature:
  • “I began trusting that this goodness is more the truth of who we are than any story we tell.” (Tara Brach, 14:02)
  • “Trust in basic goodness, trust Buddha nature, trust the light love that lives through this being and all beings.” (Tara Brach, 65:52)
• On the universal symbol of enlightenment:
  • “The answer is: the halo…because humans experience that waking up, that evolving has to do with that kind of light.” (Tara Brach, 17:47)
• On technology and self-inquiry:
  • “The only path to liberation is direct experience…there’s no way around building our muscle of paying attention.” (Tara Brach, 53:15)
• On intimate relationships:
  • “Conflict can’t get resolved unless we’re able to go into our vulnerability…bringing that presence to fear and leaning in and sensing what’s under it.” (Tara Brach, 57:56)
• Podcast-in-jokes:
  • Ajahn Kovilo: “When you mentioned the U turn, I thought of this thing where maybe whenever we get an Olympic trance, we can make each other take a spin around in a circle.” (60:13)
  • Ajahn Nisabho: “Unitarians, they don’t have ten commandments. They have ten suggestions.” (64:51)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Tara’s Present Experience in the World – 04:24
• Story of Crisis and Finding Refuge – 06:47–11:26
• Spiritual Biography & Dharma Integration – 12:03–14:02
• On Trust and the Triple Gem – 14:02–17:04
• Insights on Refuge, Radiance, and the Halo – 17:31–18:55
• RAIN Practice Introduction & Personal Story – 19:08–24:32
• Guided RAIN Meditation – 25:34–32:27
• On Sacred Pause & News Consumption – 34:01–36:22
• Practical Informal Practice (‘U-Turn’ with Judgment) – 37:58–42:12
• Compassion and Equanimity/Boundaries – 44:11–50:15
• Relationships and Vulnerability – 56:56–59:58
• Traditions: Going Deep or Wide – 61:43–62:17
• Closing/Final Prayer – 65:52

Tone and Atmosphere

The conversation balances gravity with warmth and humor, blending intimate personal sharing, deep dharma, and the lighthearted camaraderie of friends exploring spiritual truths together. Tara meets Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho’s curiosity with humility, clarity, and gentle wisdom, while the monks’ respectful, playful questions draw out Tara’s most lived-in, practical guidance—anchoring abstract teachings in the realities of human emotional life.

Takeaways

• Radical acceptance—meeting what’s here with presence—is not passive, but an act of profound courage and compassion.
• Self-compassion practices (like RAIN) are essential for navigating personal suffering and staying awake to the suffering of the world.
• True engagement requires balancing compassion's warmth with equanimity’s spaciousness, and recognizing when to “say yes to your no.”
• Spiritual practice flourishes with both discipline and flexibility; depth comes from sincere intention rather than rigidity about form.
• All spiritual work is relational—whether with ourselves, our loved ones, or the world at large: the gateway is vulnerability, truth, and trust in our basic goodness.

Final Blessing (Tara, 65:52):
“The prayer would be to trust. Trust in basic goodness, trust Buddha nature, trust the light love that lives through this being and all beings.”

For more, visit tarabrach.com or explore Clear Mountain Monastery in Seattle.