Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 04/10/2019 with Lama Aria Drolma

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

The Rubin Museum of Art presents a weekly meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is recorded in front of a live audience, and includes an opening talk, a 20-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. The guided meditation begins at 20:00. If you would like to attend Mindfulness Meditation sessions in person or learn more, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation. This program is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. Lama Aria Drolma led this meditation session on April 10, 2019. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: rubinmuseum.org/events/event/lama-aria-drolma-04-10-2019

Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast. I'm your host, Dawn Eshelman. Every Wednesday at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea, we present a meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area. This podcast is a recording of our weekly practice. If you would like to join us in person, please visit our website at rubinmuseum.org meditation. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the New York Insight Meditation Center. In the description for each episode, you will find information about the theme for that week's session,

including an image of a related artwork chosen from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art and to our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. We are talking about action this month. And this is all part of this year-long conversation about power, the nature of power, power as something that is within us and between us. And this concept of action is, of course, central to this idea of power. We have an intention,

and then in order to make it active, we take action upon it. And then we've also been talking about the phase after that, the reflective practice, and how there is a kind of a cycle that can occur there. So action. We're looking at a figure today who is in full action here. This is Sri Havadra. And this is one of the main yidams or enlightened beings in Vajrayana Buddhism. And let's take a look. This is pretty impressive. And there's a lot going on here, a lot to see. I hope you got to take a look at some of the detail that we were showing as you were coming in. Havadra has striking blue skin. And that is actually hair that is kind of flying up behind him there. And he is in embrace with his consort there. He himself has, I think, eight faces that we can count, and 16 hands with which to take much action.

In each hand, he has skull caps. And on the right hand side, we see that each skull cap has a worldly god in it that is gazing outward. And on the other side, we see that each skull cap has a different type of animal, and that animal is gazing inward. So there's this balance of awareness, outward and inward. And you'll also see a hand that reaches towards the topmost area, and that hand actually belongs to the consort, and she is wielding a curved knife in there. And in many instances when we see a sword or a knife, that tool is to symbolize the kind of cutting through of ignorance to wisdom. So I think what's really interesting

and unique about this artwork here is that all of the figures, most of them in any case, are in a kind of dancing posture, right? And we can see that the legs of the main deity here are, some are in a kind of warrior pose. That's another way of preparing for action. And then some are kind of dancing. Then surrounding the main deity here are goddesses who are also yielding, in a way, a dancing pose. So this is a type of action. And as we talk about action today, I'll invite you to think about not just what the action is that you might be thinking about,

but really quality of action. Are you dancing? And also surrounding these main deity and the consort here is this kind of halo of flames. And that is known as flames of pristine awareness. So also thinking about being surrounded by flames of awareness and remembering this balance of looking inward and looking outward. What is the quality of your awareness as you're taking action? So we are delighted to have back with us today our teacher, Lama Arya Droma.

She has been studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism for over 10 years and trained in the Dharma Path program offered by Kagyu Thubten Choling Monastery. She is a graduate of a traditional Tibetan Buddhist retreat spanning three years and three months. She attended Mumbai University in India and graduated with a BA in sociology and is trained in computer programming from NIIT in India.

Lama Aryadroma also actively volunteers as a fundraiser for breast cancer research, and she supports several non-profit organizations. Please welcome her back to the Rubin Lama Arya Droma. Thank you, Dawn, for the lovely introduction. And hello and welcome, everyone. Thank you all for being here. I'm absolutely delighted to be here with you all. And do we have any newcomers today?

Oh, wonderful. I assure you, you will enjoy this session, and it's very easy to follow. And thank you all for coming in it's a wonderful day outside so today today's artwork is was eloquently described by dawn and this is the main deity of the Shakya lineage the practice root text of the deity is one of the most important Indian Buddhist scriptures of Vajrayana. It's a very profound practice and due to the profound nature of the text, the practice is considered extremely precious. And it takes more than three months of teachings and empowerments for one to even practice it.

So it's so rare and precious. And the image, the jeweled image in union represents the wisdom of enlightenment. It's almost like, you know, these images are like a movie. Each part of the hand, everything has a story. And so as I mentioned, that it takes more than three months just to give the teachings and empowerments for one to be even able to practice. And the practice is almost like eight months or a year's retreat itself or it can extend to three and a half years. So being a Buddhist myself I feel a lot of joy when I come to the Rubin Museum and for the fact it fosters the rich culture of the Himalayan regions bringing art, culture,

great performances and a variety of teachers are invited here, nurturing the community and enriching us mentally and spiritually. And for this reason, I feel I owe it to the audience to teach authentic wisdom from the Buddhist tradition. And my constant challenge is, how do I bring the ancient wisdom of the Buddhist tradition combined with the secular and modern teaching. So I do a lot of study and so I can bring important contents from the ancient wisdom to share with you all and I'm reading this wonderful book by His Holiness, the 17th Jalwang Karmapa, Aujintrinle Doje, and the book is called Freedom Through Meditation. And this is an amazing book for the mindfulness meditation practitioners

because it brings the ancient wisdom into modern context. And His Holiness, the 17th Jalwang Karmapa, needs no introduction, but he heads the 900-year-old Karmakaju lineage, and I'm a practitioner of the Karmakaju lineage, and and have attended many teachings from His Holiness Jalwang Karmapa, along with thousands of attendees around the world and has millions of followers. And he's of a young generation of Tibetan Buddhist masters. And what is even more amazing is that his teachers are highly realized masters like Dalai Lama, Thaisit Rinpoche and Trangur Rinpoche, just to name a few. So what is wonderful about this book Freedom Through Meditation, he is able to teach in simple language combined with the authentic wisdom, he reveals the profound insight about

mindful meditation for the modern times and modern minds so effortlessly. And this book also has great insight to the theme of this month, action, combined with the theme from the past month's intention, reflection, which leads to action. So let's take the theme intention in context to mindful meditation and the theme being action. I'm reading some excerpts from the book Freedom Through Meditation. And the groundwork when you start the mindful meditation is this is why I'm reading this passage generally everyone wishes for peace and happiness in the world but when when we look at the actual situation in the world we can see that violence has erupted in many places and we could lose a hope for world peace

but actually the most important cause for world peace. But actually the most important cause for the peace and happiness is within us. To have peace and happiness in our own minds through the power of love and compassion. For this reason we need to train in loving kindness and compassion just as we do physical exercise. We need to experience ourselves as embodying compassion and feel that we have become its very essence. So here is the intention we need to have when we start the mindfulness meditation, to have the intention of compassion. So this intention of compassion, generating

compassion is something as we, Buddhist practitioners, we do it during all our practices. The most important, the first is we start our prayers, reciting and going for refuge. And the second prayer is, may I benefit all sentient beings. And it is a prerequisite and it's mandatory practice because we, the practitioners, are training our minds to become that very essence of compassion. And how do we generate compassion? We can see the suffering around the world and we genuinely wish for everyone in the world to have happiness, including ourselves. And this is the simple way and profound way to generate compassion. way to generate compassion. And the theme from the past month's reflection is to reflect on the suffering in the world and our own suffering, anxiety, fear, anger,

depression. And then the theme action is taking action of practicing mindfulness meditation. So when you train your mind to be more peaceful, when you have inner peace, you have outer peace. And when there is outer peace, you create world peace. So everyone here, create world peace. So everyone here, you know, when you have inner peace, when you go home, you generate that peace to your family. And your family does the same, your sons and fathers and brothers and sisters. That is how we create world peace. So everyone has that responsibility and the power. The whole theme being power, that's the power you have. Each one of us has that. So for today's mindfulness meditation practice, I will be teaching you calm abiding meditation or tranquility practice known as Shinne in Tibetan and Shamatha in Sanskrit. known as Shinne in Tibetan and Shamatha in Sanskrit.

This meditation technique was practiced even before Buddha's time and it was passed on from master to student and this is the foundation of all meditation practices. So in the Tibetan word Shinne, the first syllable Shi means peace or to pacify and the second syllable Ne means to abide and rest there. So you not only have to have peace, you have to be able to abide there. So shin-ne meditation or calm abiding meditation does two things. First, we pacify our thoughts because our thoughts are all over the place.

And the thoughts create emotions of anger, depression, anxiety and then we can rest there in a peaceful state. So when we practice calm abiding meditation the mind needs an anchor, a focus, a support to put its attention on because otherwise the mind is like a monkey mind, you know, it goes all over the place. Right now, you're probably thinking I haven't had lunch, or you're probably thinking I have to go back to work and face my boss, oh my god, or, you know, I should be, I should go and enjoy the weather outside, I have a list of things to do all these things your mind is doing so what we are actually doing is bringing our mind back to our body today and this is why we need an anchor you know a focus and

today we will all we will use the breath as an anchor you know and that's it's very easy to place your attention on your breath because you breathe all the time and it's a very natural thing to put your attention on your breath. So when we start the actual meditation session, there are two essential points, the essential point of your body and the essential points of the mind. The essential points of the body is your posture, which is very important. In our tradition, there are seven points of posture and I'll just go over these seven points. But the most important point to keep is since everyone is sitting on the chair, to have a straight back and keep your legs firmly placed on the floor. Better not to sit with crossed legs. And if you can avoid leaning behind, that's also very good because eventually you will experience your mind.

So when you lean back, the chair could obstruct it. So I'll just go over the seven points just so you'll have that information and knowledge. So you can sit on the chair with the feet firmly placed, legs, your feet firmly on the ground parallel, hands in the lap on the knees. What that means is you can put your right hand over your left, touching your thumbs and just place it on your lap. Or you can just put your hands like this out and just place it on your knees like this. So whatever you feel comfortable. You have a straight back, your shoulders are not slumped, they are like straight. Your chin is slightly tucked and I'll show you how, you can watch me. It's just slightly tucked like this.

Your lips touching with the tongue resting on the roof of the mouth. The eyes, you can open your eyes like this, look straight ahead and then just drop your eyelids. So your gaze is kind of somewhere down there. And wherever your gaze is, gently place your gaze there. You're not studying any pattern or object there. You're just keeping it in a downward gaze gently. And in this practice, we we keep our in this tradition with the body posture we keep our eyes open and why do we keep our eyes open so that we don't fall asleep it's very easy to fall asleep and we're sleepwalking

anyways so in this meditation practice we'll try you know and those of you all who feel you need to close your eyes and that's okay you know everything is a very gentle process you know you have compassion for yourself gentle loving kindly everything is in that process so now I read all those important postures but also there's a note. We all have different bodies and capabilities. It's important to have a comfortable posture and if you're uncomfortable or have any injuries do not struggle but adjust your body to adapt to the posture. Now, now, so that's the sitting posture. Now the most important thing is your mind. So let's go to your mind. Now there's the essential point of the body which I

just explained. Now we turn our attention to your mind because the mind is what is important and that's what does the meditation. So we turn attention from a body to a mind and we start the mindful meditation with keeping the intention of compassion in our minds, generating compassion for the suffering of all beings and wishing for their happiness. And also bringing the past month's theme of reflection, of wanting, you know, the reflection is you're looking at your mind and wanting peace for

ourselves and the world. And the theme of this month being action, taking action towards that with the mindfulness meditation practice so today we are focusing our awareness on our breath so let's put our minds attention on our breath and all you need to do is challenge yourself for one minute i will without any distraction one pointed concentration i will focus on my breath and you focus your prayer on your breath very gently and it's just putting your attention of your breath going all the way in and then when you breathe out just breathe out to the entire space in front of you and if you your mind comes to a rest at

that moment just rest in within that so this is this will be your challenge you know putting your one pointed without any distraction your attention on your breath for one minute and then you can extend it to two and three. So that'll be our intention. So I will hit the gong and we will do our meditation for a short while and when I hit it back again we'll relax, okay? So wonderful. Sit with your back straight, your gaze downward. your gaze downward. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally and as you inhale, let your breath go all the way to your abdomen and as you exhale

see the breath comes out of your nostrils into space in front of you. And imagine it fills the whole space in front of you. Inhale and exhale. Breathe normally. Breathe gently. And as you breathe out, let your breath fill the entire space in front of you. And just rest in that present moment of awareness. Any time you start thinking any thoughts, acknowledge your thoughts, just say thinking, then drop it, let it go, don't follow it, don't engage in it and return to your breathing. Focus your attention, one you exhale let your breath fill the entire

space in front of you and just relax in that present moment of awareness. Do not follow the past, the past is finished. Do not think of the future, that I must do this or I might do that. Just rest with the present moment of awareness, with one pointed concentration, focusing your attention of inhaling and exhaling. Meditation allows you to look inward. So when you meditate, you will see a lot of thoughts. Thoughts are going to come and go. Depending on the thoughts, emotions are going to rise. But as soon as you realize you're thinking, just say thinking, acknowledge it and gently let go and tell yourself, this is my time to be mindful and I'm meditating. And just come back and put your attention, one pointed attention on your breath.

Okay, let's relax. So just relax, just stretch a little bit. And the reason I rang the bell for after a short while it's wonderful it's lovely to do short short moments of meditation and even at you when you're in in your private time when you meditate you can meditate for a minute you can meditate for two minutes and then you wake up a little bit as you're falling asleep, and then you can just stretch, and then come back, sit there, and meditate again for a few minutes more. And that's what we're going to do now. After the second session of meditation, we can have Q&A. So keep all your questions ready. have Q&A so keep all your questions ready and while you're meditating if you feel like moving if you feel like coughing it's absolutely all right to do

so perhaps not a good idea to be calling someone you can definitely cough move so let's do another session and this, all of you can focus for two whole minutes on your breath. And this is how you practice. And if you can't, it's okay, one minute, few minutes. And remember, as you catch your thoughts, while you're meditating, your mind is going to wander off. And then you acknowledge your mind has wandered off thinking and coming back so this is how we what we never block our thoughts because the nature of the mind like the nature of orange is like orange color and the fruit is sweet and sour the nature of your mind is for the thoughts to go up to go

everywhere but you acknowledge it and it comes and goes the thoughts comes and goes you don't block your thoughts but you acknowledge it and say I'm gonna let it go and bring your attention back to your breath okay a few more minutes of meditation. Inhale and exhale. Breathe naturally. And put all your attention on your breath. Gently breathe in and breathe out. And as you breathe out, let your breath fill the entire space in front of you and just rest in that in that state of mind When a thought or emotions or a sensation arise, As soon as you recognize it, think simply,

that's a thought, that's an emotion. Do not follow after the content or engage in them. Just let it go and come back and put your attention one pointedly at your breath focusing on the ingoing breath and then outgoing breath. and take some time to generate absolute compassion to all the suffering around the world and to yourself wishing everyone happiness and to yourself. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally, breathe naturally, and as you exhale, let your breath fill the entire space in front of you, and just relax in that present moment of awareness. The thoughts can come and go. They are like the clouds in the sky. Thank you. Okay, relax, stretch a little bit. So from the book, Freedom Through Meditation, His Holiness Jalwant Karmapa shares about his own mindful practice, which is a nice understanding of what he does actually, what

his practice is. of what he does actually what his practices and he called quotes the main practice I try is to make is to maintain to be mindful and aware in all my activities whether it's moving about sitting lying down or anything else I think I do manage to maintain this practice of a moment to moment focus in my mind and this is so casually kind of put there in the book and we if we don't know better we would often misinterpret to be so casual. But the Karmapa makes this activity very simple and easy. But in truth, this is the unwavering attention is the sign of a very advanced practice.

Imagine if you were to be mindful every moment of your time, as you're getting up, as you're going out. You will see then if you have anger and depression or when you're upset, these emotions, you'll see it arise and that's when you can you know bring it bring it into a peaceful state of mind but here you know the Karmapa's activity seems simple his unwavering attention is a sign of a very advanced practice what is what is actually describing is a state of Buddha. This is what Buddha means, to be absolutely awake. Thank you all. Have a wonderful day today. Thank you.

That concludes this week's practice. If you'd like to attend in person please check out our website rubenmuseum.org meditation to learn more sessions are free to ruben museum members just one of the many benefits of membership thank you for listening have a mindful day