EP 13: HOMECOMING: THE JOY FROM BEING PRESENT WITH OUR DOGS

In this Episode, hosts Mark Drucker and Drew Webster interview Tara Brach and have a meaningful conversation, touching on such themes as attention, intention, animal sentience, interbeing, and grief, all in the context of exploring the human connection and companionship with dogs. The hosts discuss the value and benefits of being present and attuned to our dogs behavior and needs. There's a nice conversation around the importance of slowing down, deepening attention, and softening our hearts to create more connection and understanding. The show concludes with a beautiful meditation, guided by Tara.

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ABOUT TARA BRACH

Tara Brach’s teachings blend Western psychology and Eastern spiritual practices, mindful attention to our inner life, and a full, compassionate engagement with our world. The result is a distinctive voice in Western Buddhism, one that offers a wise and caring approach to freeing ourselves and society from suffering.

As an undergraduate at Clark University, Tara pursued a double major in psychology and political science. During this time, while working as a grassroots organizer for tenants’ rights, she also began attending yoga classes and exploring Eastern approaches to inner transformation. After college, she lived for ten years in an ashram—a spiritual community—where she practiced and taught both yoga and concentrative meditation. When she left the ashram and attended her first Buddhist Insight Meditation retreat, led by Joseph Goldstein, she realized she was home. “I had found wisdom teachings and practices that train the heart and mind in unconditional and loving presence,” she explains. “I knew that this was a path of true freedom.”

Over the following years, Tara earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fielding Institute, with a dissertation exploring meditation as a therapeutic modality in treating addiction. She went on to complete a five-year Buddhist teacher training program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Working as both a psychotherapist and a meditation teacher, she found herself naturally blending these two powerful traditions—introducing meditation to her therapy clients and sharing western psychological insights with meditation students. This synthesis has evolved, in more recent years, into Tara’s groundbreaking work in training psychotherapists to integrate mindfulness strategies into their clinical work.

In 1998, Tara founded the ⁠Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC (IMCW)⁠, which is now one of the largest and most dynamic non-residential meditation centers in the United States. She gives presentations, teaches classes, offers workshops, and leads silent meditation retreats at IMCW and at conferences and retreat centers in the United States and Europe. Tara’s podcast is downloaded more than 3 million times each month.

Together with Jack Kornfield, Tara co-founded ⁠Banyan⁠ and the ⁠Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training Program⁠, which serves participants from 74 countries around the world.

In addition to numerous articles, videos, and hundreds of recorded talks, Tara is the author of the books: ⁠Radical Acceptance ⁠⁠(Bantam, 2003),⁠ ⁠True Refuge (Bantam, 2013),⁠ ⁠Radical Compassion (Viking, 2019) ⁠and ⁠Trusting the Gold (SoundsTrue, 2021)⁠.

She has a son, Narayan, and lives in Northern Virgina with her husband, ⁠Jonathan Foust.⁠

CHAPTERS

00:00 Show opens

10:30 Being Your Dog's Best Friend: Friendship and Companionship

27:19 Learning from Dogs: What They Teach Us About Ourselves and Relationships

30:40 Paying Attention with Intention: The Power of Mindfulness

43:59 Receptive Energy: Slowing Down and Softening

48:45 The Value of Mindfulness and Compassion

55:27 Letting Go of Expectations and Embracing Play

01:11:06 Honoring Grief and the Love We Shared

01:19:45 Recognizing Interbeing and Cultivating Connection

01:24:28 Begin Guided Meditation

LINKS

Tarabrach.com

The SpiritHouse Project - Ruby Sales

The Big Fix Uganda

Mary Oliver, Poet

Mark Doty, Poet

Pawsitive Change, Zach Skow

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Disclaimer: Our podcasts are for your enjoyment and for general education and information purposes only. We interview veterinarians, scientists, behavior consultants, dog trainers, influencers, etc. You must always consult with your own [credentialed] canine and pet practitioners before implementing any training program or course of medical diagnosis and/or treatment.