Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 04/24/2019 with Rebecca Li

Episode Date: April 24, 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 22:22. 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. Kimberly Brown led this meditation session on April 24, 2019. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: https://rubinmuseum.org/mediacenter/rebecca-li-04-24-2019-podcast

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. My name is Dawn Eshelman, and it's my pleasure to have you here for our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. So nice to have you all. We are at the very end of this month-long discussion about action. And this has kind of been a bit of an arc for those of you who have been here over the last few months. We've talked about intention and then reflection or reflective practice and then action. So it is kind of this cycle of what it takes to make a powerful action in the world around you. This setting of an intention very clearly and then taking action and then reflecting upon that and having that feed the next intention. So today we're looking at a beautiful object that is really embodying this idea of action. There's a lot of action in the posture here, actually. This is

a chala, the immovable one. But in fact, there's a lot of movement going on. That's an interesting thing to consider. This is Tibet, 14th century, gilt copper alloy. And this is actually a wrathful Buddha. And wrathful Buddhas, like the immovable one here, are models of the enlightened mind, having achieved this state of enlightenment, this sort of perfection state, spiritually speaking. And let's take a look. So Achala is standing on this lotus throne, but in a very unusual posture, right? It's almost like warrior pose, which is a pose of action, but one knee is down on the ground. So if you think about what it would take to do that, there's a lot going on there, right? And then of course, bejeweled and some robes around Achala here, and a beautiful crown.

And then these ribbons that are flying from his headdress or his crown here. And it is said that the immovable one charges, hopes to aid a devotee with so much energy that the ribbons are literally flying off his head. So that's part of his iconography there. And you will notice that he holds a sword in one hand. And this is a nod to Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. And that symbol there is a kind of a warning. And it is a little bit of a threatening stance there, right?

A sword being held overhead. But that sword is meant to cut through ignorance, cut through ignorance so that you can see what's truthful. And that's a really important quality for one who is taking action. And then his other hand also is a pretty interesting pose there. It's a little bit of a warning. So it's almost as if he's saying, take action, but make sure it's the right one. Rebecca Lee is back with us today. Great to have you back, Rebecca. She is a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yin

and started practicing meditation in 1995 when she became a meditation instructor. She's trained with Simon Child to lead intensive retreats and receive full Dharma transmission in 2016. She currently teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures and leads retreats all over the North America and the UK. And you can find more of her talks and writings at rebeccalee.org. She's also the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community and a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey, where she also serves as faculty director of the Alan Daly Center for the Study of Social Justice.

Please welcome her back. Please welcome her back. Hello everyone. It's lovely to be back practicing with you on this beautiful spring day. So sunny. And I hope you'll get to enjoy some of that sunshine outside. Thank you, Don, for the wonderful introduction of this topic and I'm so happy to have this opportunity to be looking at this statue and what a beautiful statue.

And I've been thinking about this theme of action and it reminds me of something that I hear a lot from practitioners or people who are considering engaging in the practice. Who say that, you know, actually the most important thing is to just be a good person. Have you heard that, to be a good person? To be a good, you know, I know, like the most important thing is to be a good person. I think it's worthwhile for us to take a moment to think about this a little bit. Now of course the practice is definitely not about being a bad person.

We don't come here and meditate to become a bad, a worse person. Or really, what we are talking about is not to engage in actions that cause harm to ourselves and others. So that is clear. Now, sometimes it may not be so clear, because sometimes we hear that, oh, the practice is to cultivate this clear awareness. And we might think, somehow our mind drifts into this place where we can tell ourselves that, oh, so that means as long as I'm clearly aware of what I'm doing,

that's okay, right? Whatever I'm doing, I'm clearly aware of what I'm doing. Is that the case? Because that sounds right. Because we're seeing the practices about cultivating clear awareness. However, the key is to establish right view in our mind. What we are talking about cultivating clear awareness is cultivating clear awareness of the effect of our action on others

and ourselves. Because a lot of times we do things we don't know how it's going to affect us, or we don't pay attention to it more accurately. So when we talk about cultivating clear awareness, it's to be clearly aware of the effect of our action on others, both the obvious and not-so-obvious ones, and also on ourselves. And when we cultivate this clear awareness, then we'll be able to see that,

oh, what I'm about to do may not be such wholesome action because it causes harm to others or cause harm to ourselves, not in accordance with wisdom and compassion. Then it also involves cultivating this clear awareness of what it is that we are doing because sometimes we know what we are doing is harmful for ourselves and our others, but we keep doing it.

Have you been in those places? And the reason why we do that is because we don't have clarity about the moment to moment thought process of our, in our mind. So one thought give rise to the next thought, and then we think we do this, and we believe we have to do this, and then before we know it, we do something.

It's like, wow, that wasn't so great. So the clarity that we cultivate is also the moment-to-moment action of our mind. Every moment we are making decision. We are making decision to believe in this idea that pops in our head. We engage in this action to not stop giving rise to that ideas. And then we act it out in our speech, in bodily action.

So when we keep in mind about what this practice of cultivating clear awareness is really about, then we know it is about refraining from giving rise to unwholesome actions that hurt ourselves and others. So being a good person, many of us think of this as, well, okay, I know, try not to engage in unwholesome actions. But it's not so obvious how to be a good person. Or when we think about the teachings of karma, there are really two ways to engage in good actions or wholesome actions. One way will lead us to be a good person, to engage in wholesome actions, things we say or things we do, while generating suffering. Everyone laughed. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's like, because we try so hard to be a good person, to do the right thing, we're so worried about whether people can see that I'm actually a good person. What if someone misunderstand me? And so we try so hard to be a good person, to do good. We actually generate a lot of suffering in ourselves by being so anxious, being so worried about not being recognized and being misunderstood. And also while we are so worried about not being recognized and being misunderstood.

And also while we are so worried about all these things, maybe we actually are not doing something. We might inadvertently be doing something that hurts some people while we really believe we are doing something good. So that would be generating the wholesome karma. We try to be a good person. Versus what Master Shen Yen, my master, taught as the karma of the path, which is the action, the kind of action that leads to liberation? What does that mean? To be, instead of being a good person,

we try so hard to be a good person, we suffer, we can be someone who is free from suffering, or not generate suffering for ourselves, while being mindful of the effect of our actions on ourselves and others, and choosing the wholesome, beneficial actions. So what that will look like is that what we'll be doing, what kind of actions, the things we say, the activity we engage in, will be seen by others as wholesome. Other people will say, wow, you are such a wholesome person.

While we're not sitting around thinking that, wow, I'm such a great person. I'm doing so many good things. And at the same time, secretly think that I should be rewarded in some way. Someone somewhere will know that I'm really doing a lot of good, right? And, you know, I will be examined from bad things that happen in life. Whatever secret thoughts that we have in our mind that we believe should be the reward of our good action. We don't have those things. It's just like we do these actions

that benefit others, that will also benefit ourselves without all this suffering. Those are the actions of the path. A little different from trying to be good and suffering the whole time. So how do we learn and practice to engage in these actions, actions in ways that bring benefits to ourselves and others without generating suffering. One way that I can boil it down is to, whatever we do, do our best and let go.

Maybe you have seen this in someone's bumper sticker. Do our best and let go. Now, that needs a little explaining. When we hear the word do our best, we believe we know what we are talking about. But maybe that's not what I mean. So when I say do our best, I'm not referring to performing our personal best. You know how like when you do something, either you do a piece of writing, you give a speech, or you do a drawing, perform a piece of music. You think of the time that you did a really good job, right?

That time that everything works out, all the stars are lined up, your body and mind are in perfect shape. That was your best, personal best. And then that is doing your best, meaning to be that, to do that. That's not what we mean here by doing our best. And you can see how that way of doing our best causes a lot of suffering. So check to see if you're trying to do your best in that way.

Now, how do we do our best if that's not the way? The way to do our best is to be clearly aware of the present moment conditions of our body and mind and also the conditions around ourselves. If you notice what happens to your body and mind, you know every day is different. And so, for example, today I'm in a state of great sleep deprivation. I haven't been able to sleep for two straight days

because of some health issues. So that's my present moment condition. Yeah, so we all have our present moment body and mind condition. And sometimes it's also what's around us. There might be family difficulty, there might be just very overcast weather that makes it difficult for us to be energetic. Whatever it is, that's the present moment condition.

And we, knowing all this, we give it our best in the moment. To be present with whoever we're with, to do the task at hand, to give it our best. Without comparing with our personal best, like what I can theoretically do. This is my best now. This is my best now. That's what I mean by doing our best and let go.

Now, when we hear this, we are like, oh, I'll do my best and then let go. now when we hear this we is like oh i'll do my best and then let go and what that's what a lot of people do is like i do my best with all the tension and anxiety in my mind thinking okay i need to do my best and what like you know i i do my best other people are going to think that i'm so wonderful and they want to acknowledge me and appreciate how great I am and all that stuff. Maybe I get my next promotion and I become famous, whatever it is that we think and have in our mind, of course, the anxiety to come with trying to be perfect.

And then we think, after I do all that, and then I can let go. By that time, we have accumulated so much tension and attachment to this notion of having to be perfect, whatever that means, that we'll find letting go to be quite difficult. by doing our best and letting go is to let go moment to moment while we are doing our best in this present moment. What they involve is to notice these habits of thinking that, oh, I have to be my personal best. that, oh, I have to be my personal best. Or, oh, what if people do not see what I'm trying to do?

What if people do not appreciate what I'm doing? All those worries and also our attachment to the idea that things have to be a certain way for me to do my best. I have a student who tell me that he used to have this habit of thinking that, oh, I didn't sleep eight hours last night. I can't meditate today. You just need to sit there, you know. But he really believed that, and it had caused him a lot of grief. And slowly he learned to realize that this idea is causing him suffering. So as we are doing our best in the present moment,

we practice letting go these notions, these ideas that we have created in our mind that we believe in that cause ourselves suffering. And so in this way, whatever we do, maybe to reach out, to extend our care to people in our lives, or engage in a project that will better the life of people in our community, whatever it is that we do, moment after moment, we do our best given the causes and conditions in the present moment

and let go of our idea of how things have to be. And that way, we can engage in actions that benefit others and ourselves without giving rise to suffering. That way, we can be liberated from our habit of creating suffering. That is creating the karma of the path. So it's not doing nothing, but doing a lot. Like this statue, the achala, moving a lot of movement without motion, without being unmovable, the mind not being moved,

not being moved by the anxiety and worry and the desire to strive for recognition. It's like we do what needs to be done in this moment and let go at the same time. So this is where the meditation practice will come in to support us to engage in this cultivation of karma of the path. So let's practice our meditation together and try to set our body up in a position that's conducive to relaxation. You might find if you have a bag that's sitting on your lap,

you might find putting it down will release the pressure on you. Anything that put pressure on you, if you release it, you'll find it much conducive to the body relaxation. You might find sitting a little closer to the front edge of the chair the front edge of the chair to be helpful in setting up your torso to allow the lower back to fall into its natural curvature, allowing the spine to do the work of holding up the body, reducing muscle tension. When the body is relaxed, your mind can relax. We go through the whole body relaxation together. Feel the relaxation of the top of the head.

Feel the relaxation spread to the forehead like melting butter. Check to see if we're holding tension there by habit. Maybe from worrying about what might happen. worrying about what might happen, and allow the tension to melt away. Feel the relaxation spread to the eyeballs and eye muscles. We hold a lot of tension here from all the analyzing, judging in our daily life. And we can give these muscles a vacation, allowing the tension to melt away.

Then we feel the relaxation spread to the facial muscles. Check to see if we hold tension in our face by habit, maybe to hold up a facial expression for the world to see, right here, right now, you don't need to do that. You can give these muscles a vacation and allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the entire head.

Feel the relaxation spread down the neck muscles. Directly experiencing these muscles softening like melting butter. And feel the relaxation spread to the shoulder muscles and down the arms, the forearms, and all the way to the fingertips. And feel the relaxation spread to the chest area. Check to see if we're holding tension there by habit,

maybe from anxiety. And give this anxiety a rest, and allow the pretension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down the torso, all the way to the lower abdomen. melt away to the lower abdomen. Trust that the skeletal structure can hold up the body. And we can let these muscles have a vacation, allowing the tension to melt away.

You feel the relaxation spread to the upper back, in the muscles between the shoulder blades. Allow the tension we hold there by habit to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down the lower back. to the buttocks where we can feel the body sitting on the chair. And feel the relaxation continuing to spread down the thigh muscles, down the thigh muscles, all the way down to the toes. And feel the relaxation of the entire body sitting right here, right now. Moment after moment, cultivate this wakeful and relaxed mind.

It's relaxed, but not like not falling asleep. If we notice ourselves falling asleep, we can straighten our back or open our eyes. So we're cultivating this wakeful mind. mindful mind. And we may notice the subtle movements of the body as the body breathes. Moment after moment, we are experiencing brand new sensations of the body breathing. Are we here to experience this unfolding present moment that is our life?

When we notice the mind drifting off, not a problem, all you need to do is to use that as an opportunity to bring your attention back, come back to the body, sitting right here, right now. It doesn't matter how often or how long the mind drifts off. As long as you can find your way back, to come back to the method of being here, with the body breathing, you're practicing well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.... We practice to maintain this clear awareness as we transition from stillness to motion. So even when the body starts to move, we stay with the changing sensations of the body moving. And this way we can take the clarity and stability

of the mind from meditation into our daily life. That concludes this week's practice. If you'd like to attend in person, please check out our website, rubinmuseum.org slash meditation to learn more. Sessions are free to Rubin Museum members. Just one of the many benefits of membership. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day. you