Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 10/19/2016 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

Every Wednesday, the Rubin Museum of Art presents a meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area. This podcast is a recording of the weekly practice. If you would like to attend in person, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation to learn more. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the teachers from the Insight Meditation Center and the Interdependence Project. This week’s session will be led by Sharon Salzberg focusing on Tranquility. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: rma.cm/1f3

Thank you. please visit our website at rubenmuseum.org. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the teachers from the Interdependence Project in the New York Incentive 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 Ruben Museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. So great to have Sharon back.

In addition to being the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Berry, Massachusetts, she has been studying and teaching for over 45 years and is the author of so many really helpful, wonderful, funny, easy-to-read books that are really useful. Please welcome back Sharon Salzberg. Hello. Welcome, everybody. I feel like I should speak in a very mellow fashion for tranquility. I'll start with this very beautiful quotation from the Buddha,

where he said, there is no higher happiness than peace. There's no higher happiness than peace. Everything we accumulate and we get and we experience, and all of that can be great, and we should relish the wonderful experiences we have, but most fundamentally what will give us a feeling of completion, of belonging, of all rightness, is peace. And there are different layers and meanings and levels to peace.

I was saying to Don that it was funny for me that I chose tranquility because in some ways within the context of the Buddhist teaching, that's actually not the deepest, most profound kind of peace. Nonetheless, it's really good. So the deeper, more profound kind of peace would probably be something like equanimity. It's an ability to be with what's happening, even if it's tumultuous, even if there's great adversity,

even if it's messy, even if there's a whole lot of noise, without reacting reflexively, without just kind of getting lost in it and overwhelmed by it. Because then that's the kind of peace that can go with us anywhere. The times that are calmer, the times that are more restless, the times where we're getting what we want, the times where we're watching it fade away, or we're meeting a great challenge.

And that is the work, really, of meditation, of a quality like mindfulness. To bolster that work and support that work, we also look at cultivating something like tranquility, meaning calm, simplicity, order, ritual. I love that you used the word ritual. Most of our rituals actually are about noise, right? It's having something happening. Complexity, Not getting bored.

I have a friend, for example, who told me she moved into a new apartment in New York City. And she just got into the habit of having the TV on in the background. No matter what she was doing. She was working or she was cleaning or whatever. And then she realized that she was getting more and more stressed every day. So she began more fully looking at what she was absorbing from the TV. And it was basically just one crime show after another, after another, after another.

She said, no wonder I'm really uptight. It's a bad world out there. And it's one thing. You make the conscious decision, I want to be entertained by this, and you actually pay attention. It's another thing just to get into the habit of absorbing it because you have it on in the background. And we have many things on in the background.

Those are our rituals. background and we have many things on in the background those are our rituals like you know when we are in a situation where you're waiting how often do we reach for something we're not interested in reading or do something we're actually not that interested in doing just to fill in the time because it doesn't feel okay simply to be. How unconscious are our habits? I remember John Kabat-Zinn once telling this story, who's the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, telling this story he was working with, I think it was lawyers or even justices in the Supreme Court of

Massachusetts. And somebody was telling him that there was a lot of discontent in his family life. His family, his partner and children felt that he wasn't really giving them a lot of attention. So

John had people do a kind of diary of activity throughout the day. Like, where are you spending your time? What are you doing? And it turned out that this guy looked at it and realized that he was watching, like, let's say five news shows and reading eight newspapers. And John said, how about like two news shows and one newspaper, maybe two? You know, just through the force of habit,

we are reaching for stimulation, stress, which helps us make us feel alive because intensity helps us make us feel alive. alive because intensity helps us make it make us feel alive and really if we could sort of calm down a little bit and come to just be we would feel the richness of our existence in all of its magnificence and subtlety. We don't need to have a whole lot happening all the time in order to feel alive. And that's really what tranquility is. It's the conscious choice to let go of some things, to simplify, to have that kind of soothing experience

of being where we are and actually experiencing it. I've had meditation teachers, for example, say to me, try to be mindful every time your hands are in water. So isn't that the kind of experience we would dismiss as like nothing but it's actually interesting to pay attention to something we normally pay no attention to that we just do mechanically

taking a walk and not multitasking not texting at the same time you're walking down the street or even from room to room. What happens? Often there's this period of discomfort. It's like there's nothing happening. But if we can hang in there through that, we enter this period of calm or tranquility. It's a certain kind of peace, which we need as a restorative. We need it as a balance because life in general is so stimulating.

It's so demanding. We're so responsible. We have these big to-do lists. We have to be out of here at 2.05 so we can get home for 3 o'clock. Somehow, all morning, I thought there was a bigger lag between 2 o'clock and 3 o'clock than there actually is. When I was walking in here, I thought, there's not actually a lot of time. What do you know? So think about that.

And it's not because it's bad to watch a crime show on TV or we're lazy or we're bad people in any way. But how are we spending our time? I mean, time is so precious. That's our lives. And does everything have to be so full? If it gets really full, we're not experiencing anything anymore, and we're left seeking. That's kind of the addictive spiral.

We're not paying attention to what is. We don't have attention to what is. We don't have a feeling of connection. We don't tend to look at the quality of our awareness as playing a role in our dissatisfaction. We blame the experience. It's not exciting enough. It's not new enough. It's not as good as what they have,

whatever our minds do. And then we seek more intensity, more stimulation, more happening, and that we seek more intensity, more stimulation, more happening, and that's not really experienced fully either because we're not paying attention. So then we're off and running. We need even more and more and more and more, right? So we're going to unwind some of that in our practice and learn to simply be. And that way, as we move toward cultivating really the deepest kind of peace,

which can nourish us and sustain us no matter what's going on, quiet or noise, getting what we want or not getting what we want, joy or sorrow, Getting what we want or not getting what we want. Joy or sorrow. We have a kind of, like, pool almost within, this sense of resource. It's like, oh, I know how to down-regulate. You know, I know how to appreciate calm and bring that into the situation where externally it's

not really being reinforced. But internally, I can remember how to access it. So here we are. That's a tremendous possibility. And for those of you who are in the habit of having the TV on in the background, think about it, really. And realize there's something very empowering about choice, which also brings us to election anxiety. I was watching the last debate. I have not been, compared to my habit of earlier years, that completely tuned in.

But I was watching the last debate. I got about halfway through, and I realized, I can't do this. I'm, like, so stressed out. And I turned it off. And I followed the rest on Twitter, which I usually do. But I realized that's a better medium for me in a lot of ways. Because I just felt assaulted. And it was too much.

And choosing peace is not cowardly. It doesn't mean you're in denial or that you're not facing things or that you're not willing to acknowledge suffering. It means you're pacing yourself. You've got some wisdom. And you have that sense of personal empowerment to see where it's no longer a healthy relationship to what's going on. So you're not learning.

You're not being inspired. You're not being moved to action, whatever kind of action that might be. It's just overwhelm. And so the more you learn what that feels like and the more you remember you have some choice, you can do what seems right to you. And that's fine the name of the game is always balance

it's out of balance that we forge a different relationship to everything and it's out of that different relationship that the things we want like wisdom or insight or love or compassion, patience, all of those things will emerge.

So our work is to bring our system into greater and greater balance, not to sort of grab onto an experience, like an insight, like, wow, if I have an insight, I can leave halfway through the sitting or something like that, you know. And I can text everyone about it. You know, the work is always to bring our system into greater and greater balance because everything we want, everything we seek out of something like meditation comes out of that balance. And a part of that balance is relaxing,

being able to let go, not constantly needing more and more stimulation. And so that's really what we'll look at as we sit together right now. Okay? We need enough energy so we don't go to sleep. It's not all relaxation. So they say that right away our posture reflects some of that balance. You want some energy in your body. You want your back to be straight but not like so much energy.

You're really stiff and uptight. You also do want to be relaxed and at ease. Not so relaxed that your waist slumped over because that will actually be more uncomfortable. slumped over, because that will actually be more uncomfortable. So you find your way into what seems like a relaxed posture, a balanced posture to you, with some energy and also ease. And you can close your eyes or not, however you feel most comfortable. If your eyes are open, they could be like a little bit open. You could find a spot to rest your gaze, let it go.

And if you get really sleepy in the course of this sitting, you can just open your eyes and continue on. We'll start by listening to sound. We'll start by listening to sound. Whether the sound of my voice or other sounds, it's a way of relaxing deep inside. Just be at ease. You can't control the sounds. So let them wash through you Thank you. Bring your attention to the feeling of your breath.

In this system, it's just the normal, natural breath, wherever you feel it most distinctly. It's the nostrils, the chest, or the abdomen. You can find that place where the breath is clearest for you. Bring your attention there and just rest. Rest your attention lightly, like a butterfly resting on a flower. It's just one breath. And it's happening anyway.

That's also very calming. Let the breath come to you. That same kind of openness as you had in listening to sound. Allow the breath to arise and pass away. And if you like, you can use a quiet mental notation, like in, out, or rising, falling, but very quiet. So your attention is really going to feeling the breath, just that slight movement. And when your awareness slips off, you get lost in thought,

spun out in a fantasy, or you fall asleep, truly don't worry about it. See if you can let go gently. And bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.... Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. You will. Thank you. 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.