Radical Compassion
Tara Brach · 2019
Radical Compassion (2019) is a book by Tara Brach on mindfulness & inner peace. Meditation teacher Tara Brach offers RAIN. Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture, a four-step practice for meeting fear, shame, and self-judgment with a healing, self-compassionate presence in the exact moments that matter most.
It turns compassion from a nice idea into a portable four-step practice you can actually run in the moment fear or shame has you by the throat, and reveals that the presence left behind is who you really are.
Two of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Radical Compassion pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.
- **RAIN**. Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture, is Brach's portable four-step practice for meeting hard emotions with presence. She adapted the acronym from teacher **Michele McDonald**, reworking the final step into **Nurture** so the sequence ends not in cool detachment but in active self-compassion.
- The first move of any awakening is the **U-turn**: instead of fixating on the person or situation that triggered us, we turn attention inward and ask, *What is happening inside me right now?*, the shift from being lost in a story to witnessing it.
The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 9 chapters
The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.
- The Power of Radical Compassion
- Recognize What Is Happening
- Allow Life to Be Just As It Is
- Investigate with Gentle Attention
- Nurture with Self-Compassion
- After the RAIN: Resting in Loving Awareness
- RAIN and the Trance of Unworthiness
- RAIN in Relationships: Seeing the Goodness
- Widening the Circles of Compassion
Finish Radical Compassion tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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