About the Author

Tara Brach, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist as well as a Buddhist lay priest and popular teacher of mindfulness (vipassana) meditation. She is the founder of the Insight Meditation Community in Washington, D.C., and has conducted workshops at Spirit Rock Center, Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, and other retreat centers nationwide. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her teenaged son.

Reviews

“An important, fresh voice from the ranks of modern dharma teacher-writers.”—Yoga Journal

“A consoling and practical guide that can help people find a light within themselves.”—Publishers Weekly

“A clear, practical and caring guide.”—Sharon Salzberg, New York Times bestselling author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience and Lovingkindness

“Tara Brach, perhaps more than any other spiritual teacher of our time, deeply understands self-compassion: both why we need it and how to cultivate it. This classic is a must-read for anyone wanting to develop a healthier and more loving relationship with themselves.”—Kristin Neff, Ph.D., author of Fierce Self-Compassion

“Radical Acceptance continues to be the wisdom for so many of us to tend to our fear of a rapidly changing world as well as offering us real tools to help build a new world grounded in fierce love and care for our communities.”—Lama Rod Owens, author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors

“An invitation to heal our pain by accepting our heart.”—Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessing

“Through her deep experience as a therapist, buddhist meditation teacher, yogi, and mother, Tara Brach shines light upon the vital subject of learning to realise inner completeness, wholeness, and healing.”—Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within

“An insightful, warmhearted, and important contribution.”—Tara Bennett-Goleman, author of Emotional Alchemy

“Overflows with wonderful characters whose struggles we recognize as our own. . . Tara Brach skillfully weaves together some of the most important new insights in contemporary psychotherapy with one of the central psychological insights of the Buddha: There is no part of ourselves we need to exile from our awareness and our love. Radical Acceptance is a book, and a practice, that we all need.”—Stephen Cope, author of The Great Work of Your Life

“Radical Acceptance offers gentle wisdom and tender healing, a most excellent medicine for our unworthiness and longing. Breathe, soften, and let these compassionate teachings bless your heart.”—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

A psychotherapist and Buddhist meditation teacher in the tradition of Jack Kornfield (who contributes a foreword), first-time author Brach offers readers a rich compendium of stories and techniques designed to help people awaken from what she calls "the trance of unworthiness." The sense of self-hatred and fearful isolation that afflicts so many people in the West can be transformed with the steady application of a loving attention infused with the insights of the Buddhist tradition, according to Brach. Interweaving stories from her own life as a hardworking single mother with many wonderful anecdotes culled from her therapy practice and her work as a leader of meditation retreats, Brach offers myriad examples of how our pain can become a doorway to love and liberation. An older Catholic woman in one of Brach's weekend workshops, for example, recounts how she learned to ask God to help hold her pain. Like her colleagues Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and others in the Vipassana or Insight meditation tradition, Brach is open-minded about where she gathers inspiration. Garnishing her gentle advice and guided meditation with beautiful bits of poetry and well-loved if familiar dharma stories, Brach describes what it can mean to open to the reality of other people, to live in love, to belong to the world. Obviously the fruit of the author's own long and honest search, this is a consoling and practical guide that can help people find a light within themselves. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

"An important, fresh voice from the ranks of modern dharma teacher-writers."-Yoga Journal

"A consoling and practical guide that can help people find a light within themselves."-Publishers Weekly

"A clear, practical and caring guide."-Sharon Salzberg, New York Times bestselling author of Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience and Lovingkindness

"Tara Brach, perhaps more than any other spiritual teacher of our time, deeply understands self-compassion: both why we need it and how to cultivate it. This classic is a must-read for anyone wanting to develop a healthier and more loving relationship with themselves."-Kristin Neff, Ph.D., author of Fierce Self-Compassion

"Radical Acceptance continues to be the wisdom for so many of us to tend to our fear of a rapidly changing world as well as offering us real tools to help build a new world grounded in fierce love and care for our communities."-Lama Rod Owens, author of The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors

"An invitation to heal our pain by accepting our heart."-Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessing

"Through her deep experience as a therapist, buddhist meditation teacher, yogi, and mother, Tara Brach shines light upon the vital subject of learning to realise inner completeness, wholeness, and healing."-Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within

"An insightful, warmhearted, and important contribution."-Tara Bennett-Goleman, author of Emotional Alchemy

"Overflows with wonderful characters whose struggles we recognize as our own. . . Tara Brach skillfully weaves together some of the most important new insights in contemporary psychotherapy with one of the central psychological insights of the Buddha: There is no part of ourselves we need to exile from our awareness and our love. Radical Acceptance is a book, and a practice, that we all need."-Stephen Cope, author of The Great Work of Your Life

"Radical Acceptance offers gentle wisdom and tender healing, a most excellent medicine for our unworthiness and longing. Breathe, soften, and let these compassionate teachings bless your heart."-Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry