Radical Compassion

Many of us struggle to silence our inner critic on a daily basis. According to meditation teacher Tara Brach, that’s because we are living in a “trance of unworthiness,” and are addicted to self-judgment. In her new book, Radical Compassion: Learning To Love Yourself and Your World with The Practice of RAIN (Viking. December 31, 2019), Tara offers a path to overcoming our most entrenched negative self-talk.  

Tara is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C., and a clinical psychologist who has been at the forefront of blending Buddhist meditation and therapeutic methods. She is also a best-selling author and hosts the popular Tara Brach meditation podcast. 

Tara is perhaps best known for her teachings on RAIN, an acronym that stands for Recognize, Acceptance, Investigation, and Nurturing, and describes a method for applying mindfulness to difficult emotions. In Radical Compassion, she focuses on using RAIN to cultivate compassion—beginning with compassion for ourselves. 

Here, Tricycle Editor and Publisher James Shaheen sit down with Tara, to discuss how we can use RAIN to break our addiction to self-judgment by becoming more aware of the ways we react and relaxing our identification with our feelings.

Tricycle Talks is a podcast series featuring leading voices in the contemporary Buddhist world. You can listen to more Tricycle Talks on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and iHeartRadio.