Buddhist author and therapist Dr. Tara Brach, Ph.D. has 4.6 out of 5 stars (with 5,127 reviews).
In our current times of global crises and spiking collective anxiety, Buddhist therapist Tara Brach’s transformative practice of "radical acceptance" offers a pathway to inner freedom and a more compassionate world.
This classic work now features an insightful new introduction, an exclusive bonus chapter, and additional guided meditations.
“Radical Acceptance offers us an invitation to embrace ourselves with all our pain, fear, and anxieties, and to step lightly yet firmly on the path of understanding and compassion.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Why do things have to change and be unstable?
“Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork—all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled.
Radical Acceptance offers a path to freedom, including the day-to-day practical guidance developed over Dr. Brach’s 40 years of work with therapy clients and Buddhist students.
A longtime friend of Buddhist clinical psychologist Dr. Jack Kornfield, Dr. Brach's writes with great warmth and clarity. She brings her teachings alive through personal stories and case histories, fresh interpretations of Buddhist tales, and guided meditations.
Step by step, Dr. Brach shows readers how to stop being at war with themselves and how to begin to live fully every precious moment of our lives. More
Metal and men clash once more to the end/ Warriors above, with the power to kill, descend/ Militia of blood, troops of hate march to die/ Soldiers of Hell, veterans of death arise/ [CHORUS] Prepare for attack/ Your body will burn/ Endless war/ There's no return/ Prepare for attack/ Death will arrive/ Your orders are clear/ No way to hide/ Fight till death!// Senseless death of all mankind overtakes/ Armored assassins destroy, at will, your escape/ Children of sorrow are trampled into the grave/ There is no future, no f*cking world to be saved/ [CHORUS]// To reign in Hell [guitar solo: Jeff Hanneman]// Gods of steel unleash their destruction on man/ Reign of death, what is the final command?/ Scepters of hate are dropped upon this Earth/ Clouds of terror destroy all hope of rebirth/ [CHORUS]/ Death will arrive/ Your orders are clear/ No way to hide/ Fight till death...
There are Four Ennobling Truths, four realizations that lead to enlightenment here and now and awakening in this very life, with spiritual liberation and freedom for all time. What are they?
This is disappointing, incapable of ever fulfilling us.
This is how pain/disappointment/suffering originates.
This is the cessation of all suffering (nirvana).
This is the Path to the cessation of all suffering.
Many people misunderstand Buddhism because the word "suffering" comes up so much that it seems that's all there is -- depressing talk about pain. This is very misleading. Buddhism is ALL about bringing about the END of all suffering.
I'm not like this. I'm just having a bad day, k?
That is nirvana, attainable here and now, no having to wait till death, which is actually a lot late to be starting to do anything about all the suffering that awaits us for remaining ignorant and asleep. So since we don't suffer, we dismiss anything they Buddha said, thinking it doesn't apply to us. But do we suffer? Well, that depends on, What is "suffering"?The Buddha defines what he is calling suffering (dukkha):
Various sutras sum up what unpleasant things and experiences in countless rebirths we undergo. It is not just the pain that touches us in this life; the process rolls on and on in the "continued wandering on" of saṃsāra.
Oh, the Buddha found the end to all pain?
This process itself (the Five Aggregatesclung to as self) is suffering, is unsatisfactory, is disappointing, is liable to great pain, is utterly incapable of ever fulfilling us. Rebirth is suffering (unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, unfulfilling) as are growth (maturation), aging (slowly breaking down), illness, death, loss, sorrow, crying (lamentation), physical pains, grief, and despair.
Contact with unpleasant (hateful, unloved, unwanted, repulsive) things suffering, as are being separated from the pleasant (wished for, loved, wanted, attractive). Not getting what we want, getting what we don't want, never being satisfied with anything we get, always longing and craving for more...all of it is unsatisfactory, disappointing, painful, suffering.
And it all comes back to a more fundamental disappointment beneath it all -- the Five Aggregates clung to as self: body (form); feelings (sensations), perceptions, formations, and consciousness clung to as "self."
Emphasis in Buddhism is NOT on belief. That's nearly useless and only preliminary. The emphasis is gnostic like the ancient Gnostics, for whom direct personal experience of the Truth is everything. Part of that is cultivating insight (vipassana, lit. "clear seeing") into the nature of this "suffering" along with the other two marks of existence.
The process of craving, grasping, and clinging starts with sense-contact, part of the Five Aggregates clung to as self, and how this corruption, this misapprehension, this forming of wrong view, this distorted seeing can be overcome by progressive training of the heart/mind, culminating in progressive insight, which can be remembered as the Seven Stages of Insight.
This begins by moral restraint (virtuous conduct, sila), which makes meditation (the absorptions, jhanas) possible, which makes mindfulness into the four foundations (body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects) possible.
This brings us back to the basics, the foundational summary, of what we need to penetrate -- not memorize, recite, "believe," argue about), the Teaching of the Four Ennobling Truths. What's "noble" about them or about suffering? They are not noble in the English sense of the word. The Buddhist sense of noble is arya or Aryan, which means "enlightened" or "enlightening."
The list is not a formula but a very general outline of the reflections that bring about what the historical Buddha called "enlightenment" (bodhi, "awakening"). We would rather stay asleep and perchance dream a pleasant fantasy full of pleasure and sensual experiences, delights, happiness in all its forms, of which there are many.
But this dreaming is very prone to nightmares, for in pursuit of pleasure, we ill-conduct ourselves and those karmic deeds come to fruition and ripen in great suffering, unimaginable suffering. We already taste that now, when we would dream and be full of pleasure and happiness all the time or, at least, at will. But that doesn't happen. We can't make that happen. We think we can so, like a donkey after that carrot, which is just right there in front of us, we keep going, pulling a heavy load of a cart laden with more and more karma (all our actions).
Buddhist sutras, or discourses, show the broad meaning of "suffering," from the slightest agitation to the greatest agony, coming in three categories:
dukkha-dukkha, aversion to physical pain – which includes physical and mental suffering, such as rebirth, aging, illness, dying, distress due to the undesirable.
viparinama-dukkha, the frustration of disappearing happiness – which is the suffering of pleasurable, pleasant, and happy experiences changing to painful, unpleasant, and miserable ones when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasurable are exhausted or lost.
sankhara-dukkha, the disappointment and unsatisfactoriness of transient, changing, impermanent "things" – the inability of [conditioned] things to give us constant, lasting pleasure and happiness.
So there is an END to all this suffering, now?
This includes a fundamental, inescapable unsatisfactoriness that pervades all things in and states of existence, all situations and future lives in any world (of which there are countless), any plane (of which there are 31), and any sphere (of which there are three), because all things all the time are incapable of fulfilling us and are always changing, hurtling towards destruction, and are ultimately impersonal, not ours, not under our absolute control.
At this level, the term dukkha, "suffering," indicates a lack of any lasting satisfaction, any ultimate fulfillment, any that things can ever measure up to our expectations. More
What is the point of all this talking about or even mentioning "suffering"? Yeah, yeah, we get it; we know we suffer, duh! Can't we just talk about nice things -- bliss, lights, expanded meditative states, magical powers, insights into all physical and mental phenomena, joy unending, nirvana-fication, quenching thirst, dousing the flames of greed, hatred, and smoldering delusion, stuff like that? Suffering is the problem that pleads for a final solution, a state and trait, a condition in need of a cure, an unbearable thing that we at some point have to deal with and bring to a final end.
Four truths to freedom
There's much to do to be free.
The first ennobling truth is the recognition that there is suffering, not because there is but because we don't even recognize it. We think we do. As soon as it pops up, we turn away, move on to something else, jump for distractions. We have next to no idea what it really is or what is causing it.
That is the second ennobling truth: What is causing it? The ROOT cause, the fundamental cause, the ultimate cause is? It is not craving (desire, wanting). It is ignorance (avijja), manifesting as wrong views (miccha-ditthi) and delusion (moha), confusion about reality.
The solution is? Awakening to the Truth, the ultimate truth (paramattha), enlightenment right now -- through realizing the causal links of Dependent Origination, the process by which this suffering is arising. Among those 12 links, of which ignorance is the ultimate cause, is one the Buddha singled as the one we can actually do something about right here and right now directly, and that is craving (tanha). Why do we crave? Ignorance, which is the same reason we have aversion and why we are deluded. The Buddha singles out craving to work on undoing the causes and conditions bringing about suffering. Why?
That is the third ennobling truth: What is not-suffering? Nirvana. Nirvana is the end of all suffering. How do we realize nirvana, directly perceive and experience it here and now?
That is the fourth ennobling truth: There is a Path to the end of suffering. What is it? It is outlined in general in the Ennobling Eightfold Path. However, to be more specific and less general, the Buddha spoke of 37 "things pertaining to enlightenment," the bodhipakkhiya-dhamma, for immediate development to know-and-see nirvana.
Buddhism Podcast (videos); Dhr. Seven (text), Ashley Wells (ed.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit
The Buddha's FIRE SERMON: the speech that converted 1,000 wanderers
What is the "all" that is burning?
(Buddha's Wisdom) 🔍 WE’RE BURNING RIGHT NOW — THE BUDDHA’S FIRE SERMON There’s a constant inner heat -- craving, hatred, confusion -- that drives our decisions and drains our peace.
In this guided breakdown of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (Adittapariyaya Sutta), see exactly what’s burning, why “ALL is burning” became one of Buddhism’s most powerful teachings, and a 5-step method to stop being consumed by it, today.
DISCOVER
How the Buddha converted 1,000 fire-worshippers with a single 20-minute speech
The three psychological fires burning in our chest right now (and why they always find new fuel and never stop)
The hidden follow-up teaching that challenges even clinging to the pursuit of “enlightenment”
The 5-step method that extinguished suffering for 1,000 people simultaneously
What the Buddha taught AFTER the Fire Sermon that made even enlightened beings question everything
Master Buddhist meditation and mindfulness with the Buddha's original Fire Sermon teaching
02:50 1,000 meditators, same burn — The Kassapa Setup (near Bodh Gaya)
04:11 All is burning — the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (SN 35.28)
07:27 Silence: 1,000 awaken — What liberation felt like
09:20 How to stop burning — the 5-Step Practice
11:01 Beyond the Fire
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"How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise" is a beautiful saying. A few adjustments made it poetic but ruined its original meaning. What it really means, in plain English, is: "It feels horrible to know something when the person who finds out can't do anything about it."
Pasadena is part of Los Angeles, which is part of a giant mountainous forest called the Angeles National Forest, which is probably why it is full of coyotes (and bears, deer, rams, and man-eating lions). "Them coyot's is some wily varmints," the common wisdom goes around town. They'll pick a cat right off the street or out of a yard. It's like cats-and-dogs outside because, after all, these are felines and canines, wild or feral.
What do cats know about anything anyway?
Skulking loners and organized packs of canines lope around the streets, particularly in the foothills of Altadena and other communities, coming down in search of water, bowls of dogfood in yards, and anything on four legs wandering around at night. Coyotes will grab a human baby as quickly as a dingo would if no one is watching.
Bad Kitties worse than Good Boys?
(Cat Dog Diary) Imagine a freaked-out rescued kitten meets a fluffy puppy
Can you help me find my kitty?
When my beautiful neighbor asked me what I thought happened to her Fitzgerald, I diverted: "It's not important what I think. What's important is how we're going to find him before it's too late."
"So you'll help me search by walking around the block for hours, calling out, 'Here, kitty-kitty"?
"No, I won't do that. It hasn't worked for you, and Fitz loves you. I was thinking we go divine."
"Go 'divine'? Kill ourselves and look for Fitzy in heaven?"
"No, of course not! Cats don't go to heaven. Everyone knows that. That's a place for dogs."
"Where do they go then?"
"Well, that's what I intend to find out through some urban shamanic divination procedures. They'll tell us were to look or reveal the whereabouts of all that remains of frisky Fitzy the coyote's Pemican."
"Coyote chow?"
"Possibly. Do you really want to know?"
"Yes, I must have closure!"
"Well, if that's all you need, Dr. Deborah King told me we can do it ourselves. We can cut the dysfunctional energetic ties that bind and give ourselves relief."
"Just find my cat...or else."
She wasn't having it -- skeptic, doubter, distruster, faithless -- so she pushed me to do the only thing I could, which was to go behind her back to meet with a pet detective, a psychic familiar with these sorts of cases.
I only asked the psychic as a favor. She offered her services, saying she had a knack for dealing with beloved pets. I showed her some photos then we took a walk around the block to see if Fitz would run out of wherever it was hiding and come to the psychic like a magnet. That's what she claimed happened before in the rescue of both a pet cat and a tortoise.
"How does anyone lose a tortoise?"
"It was stuck under the fence, which I moved in my search, and it ran to me," she explained.
Not exactly magic, but I would gladly take it in this case.
Closure came for me quickly, and I wasn't even looking. The psychic said pictures and walking were no longer even necessary. She already had a clear story to tell. Coyotes were not to blame, except to the extent that they may have scared, startled, panicked, chased, terrified, or injured Fitz, but not killed and consumed it. This 9-year-old fur baby was driving her human caretaker to distraction, and she was near insanity. But she wouldn't listen.
It was going to be a tough case because I put limits on the remote viewing protocol and told the psychic to stuff her preconceived telepathy and start answering a series of commonsense questions.
She said, "You're being too rigid."
And I said, "Yes, I am, and I want you to narrow your impressions, visions, and telepathic communications with the cat to just answering what I ask. Force yourself to only reveal a tiny slice of all that you know, none of which is being helpful. If you can find it in yourself to answer, just find it physically without answering or saying anything. Just go straight to it or, better yet, just get the cat to run out and throw itself at you like you claim the tortoise did."
She could not, so we started with a flood of potentially useable intel, which sent us across the boulevard to a cul de sac then a yard then a yard then a shack. Wouldn't you know? We poked around...and she wasn't there. She may have been there before, hiding out under the shed, but we didn't find her or any tangible proof she had been there. Now the messages began to come in more strongly. The psychic was saying the cat was alive.
Personally, I took it for a goner, a tuft of colorful hair in a lump of coyote scat. But we found no such lump. I had already asked 80 people at a nearby church meeting; not one of them had seen the cat.
But one church woman was sure she could imitate its voice, and this allowed me to ask the cat questions about why it left. It answered, vaguely: "I was being smothered." That made sense, but was it any reason to leave? My neighbor says their love was mutual. Seems the cat didn't think so.
The owner of the shed wasn't home, so we could only look around the yard and come back to go through the shed, empty it, just as soon as we could get permission. I returned alone (because the psychic claimed not to be feeling well) at 10:00 pm. The owner still wasn't home, and his sympathetic neighbor couldn't grant permission for a search of it. I wandered up and down the alley, calling out, "Here kitty-kitty" like a darn fool, ending up doing what I told her was pointless. I tried reasoning with the cat, sending out my own intuitive feelers for the slightest hint.
Meanwhile, my nagging neighbor was on the phone, who promised a big reward she never really intended to pay out. She was doubting and demanding answers. The psychic started texting, sending new messages, saying the injured, hungry, thirst, confused cat had moved on. Work needed me to drive to the other side of the county for an important assignment. Isn't it just like the universe to all coincide and bombard us with nonsense from all directions (i.e., Everything Everywhere All at Once)?
The three were unrelenting, pulling me in all direction. All I could do was lope and skulk very suspiciously in an alley and around the property for an hour like a cat burglar casing a joint and hoping to catch video of the cat alive to at least have a reason to hope and continue the search. It would have been better to meet with the Council of Coyotes and ask it if any member had made off with a pretty angora calico Afghan tabby furball.
The Buddhist cats of ancient Japan
"How terrible is human attachment, tenacious clinginess, and our utter inability to let go. Such is the plight of humans on this vast plane of existence, the Buddha realized and proclaimed. But how can we let go?
The Buddha answered that. "Cultivate mentally-purifying calm the develop insight. When we see the true nature of things, the heart/mind, seeing the true nature of existence, automatically lets go with no effort on our part to separate. Let me repeat, we do not need to make any extra effort to relinquish. Seeing reality as it is is enough to discard and abandon everything we are consciously and unconsciously clinging to that is bringing about our suffering (dukkha).
E. Hicks
Abraham-Hicks (a council of 12 entities as channeled by Esther Hicks with the help of her very supportive husband Jerry) says that everything we want is downstream. Let go to get it. Stop fighting the way upstream. We are not salmon.
She called and texted me, demanding to know if it was the coyotes who tore and devoured her precious kitty. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the truth was worse than that.
The psychic said the scared cat had been found, wandering and drained, by someone who took it in and loved it better, kept it safer, and gave it so much love that it didn't even want to return "home" now. "Home is where the heart is," everyone knows that. She pushed and pushed me, and all I could say was, "You say you don't want it, this reality we're in [where the cat is dead], but you don't, you don't really mean it. You say you won't stand for it, this circus we're in, but you don't, don't really mean it. What if the truth is worse than that?"
"No, that's what you already think happened. You want 'closure' to accept that. What if it's worse? What if Fitz doesn't want to come back?"
"Impossible! Fitzgerald needs me, can't live without me..."
"Well, I don't know about that. Wouldn't it be worse to find out that Fitz is fine but not coming back, alive and happy but not with you?"
"What the h*ll are you talking about?! I'll break Fitz out! Who has my cat?! Who's keeping him hostage and away from me?!"
"Why are you asking me? You don't believe in cat psychics, remember? Who cares what she said? You ask me for the 'truth,' but you don't, you don't really mean it."
If the divine Master Plan is perfection [by rebirth]
Maybe next I'll give Jewish a try
Trusting my Soul to the Ice Cream Assassin
Here, here, here
[CHORUS]
How many Fates turn around in the overtime?
Ballerinas have fins that you'll never find
You thought that you were the bomb
Yes, well so did I
[CHORUS]
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of a light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my Spark is?
Here, here, here
Eds., Wisdom Quarterly, July 4, 2026 (a true story with details changed to protect the guilty and innocent, a learning experience about human nature beset by clinging and ignorance)
All those who quote Lao Tzu and speak of the "Tao" are not teaching the historical Buddha's message of liberation from suffering and samsara
Anyone who says "nirvana is samsara" speaks ill of the Buddha's message of liberation in this very life, in this body, in this world
Syncretism (blending traditions) is beautiful, but it will not likely produce the result of either path. If the Tao is the "way," then the Eightfold Way (magga) the Buddha talked about is a very different use of the word
If the true Tao is everything, then there is no sense in talking about it
The Buddha defined the problem, defined the cause, assured is there is a solution, and pointed out the path, the Middle Way, to that solution: dukkha, samudaya, nirodha, magga
The problem is disappointment (suffering)
The cause is ignorance bound up with craving and aversion
The extinction of suffering is the extinction of ignorance
The path leading to this extinction has eight parts
Buddhism and Taoism may blend beautifully like milk and water, but they are not the same
(Buddha's Wisdom) Inception's hidden Buddhism: The real prison was never the "dream" (maya).
Inceptionis an American science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced it with his wife Emma Thomas.
The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious of targets.
To whom are we still hopelessly attached?
He is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
The ensemble cast includes Ellen Page [now living as Elliot Page], Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Dileep Rao, and Michael Caine. More
Buddhism in The Matrix goes deeper than most of us think (other than Wachowski Brothers). The Wachowskis built this film on Buddhist philosophy—but Neo (Keanu Reeves, who played the Buddha in Little Buddha) goes on a journey that reveals something most viewers miss: Taking the red pill isn'tenlightenment, it's just the beginning. This video explores what The Matrix gets RIGHT about Buddhism, what Neo gets WRONG about awakening, and why the ending is actually the most Buddhist part of the entire trilogy. More (See The Matrix Trilogy)
HOW do we get out of this prison?
We are trapped in a prison of our own making. Realizing it does NOT free us. Letting go does. But how can we let go? We can't. It isn't an act of willpower. It's by seeing things as they are. Okay, okay, that makes sense! How are they? This is not a belief-system to believe. We must go in and see kalapas and cittas, particles and mind-moments, which means we must first cultivate samadhi (stillness, absorption) to purify and intensify the instrument of seeing (the mind). Then when we really know-and-see what is there, letting go happens by itself free of effort. The mind/heart lets go when it sees all things are marked by Three Universal Characteristics.
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