Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 10/31/2018 with Rebecca Li

Episode Date: November 2, 2018

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 21:00. 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 supported in part by the Hemera Foundation with thanks to our presenting partners Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. Rebecca Li led this meditation session on October 31, 2018. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: http://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/rebecca-li-10-31-2018

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. The series is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation.

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. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art and to our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. My name's Dawn Eshelman. Great to be with you. See you all here.

We have been talking for about a month now about hopes and anxieties, hopes and anxieties. When we bring up this topic of the future, which is something that we've been talking about all year here at the Rubin Museum, hopes and anxieties are definitely a theme. And the artwork that we're looking at today, we looked at something similar from the same exhibition at the beginning of the month, and we thought we would close with some different selections at the end of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of our visitors sharing with us their hopes and their anxieties for the future. And, you know, it's really moving to spend a few minutes looking at this. If you haven't, it's just right up in our spiral lobby right as you enter the museum. And I think there's something really powerful about this sense of anonymity and also collectivity. And people end up really sharing a lot with us here on these little pieces of paper.

I think it's really useful to have this as part of our kind of evidence of our community in a way, no matter what's going on, but especially in times like these, where there's just a lot to grapple with out there in the world. This has been a hard week. And in terms of just whatever's going on personally, of course, and where those places intersect. So to kind of build awareness and compassion and also to see, oh, I'm not alone, right? I have some of these same hopes and some of these same anxieties. And I bring that up today, too, just to acknowledge that certainly we come to our practice with a sense of relief that we have the sanctuary space, but also to remind us that we practice not just to get away from things that

are challenging, but also to be better at engaging with them intentionally and really being with the difficult things. So these to me, as I was looking at them today, I thought of them also kind of as like thought bubbles for some kind of fantastical meditator. And I'm just going to read a few of them here to you. I'll read them all. I'm going to start from the end. I'm anxious because I can't let go. I'm anxious because sometimes I feel like a fraud. because sometimes I feel like a fraud. I'm anxious because too many thoughts consume my brain. Sounds like a meditator, right? I'm anxious because of not knowing.

I'm hopeful because there is beauty in both solitude and connection. That reminds me of this group. I'm hopeful because my heart has great capacity. I'm hopeful because I am stronger than all of my fears. I'm hopeful because I breathe. So we're already doing that, breathing, but we will do it together and very intentionally

here in just a moment. So delighted to have Rebecca Lee back. It's great to have you back, Rebecca. Rebecca is a Dharma heir in the lineage of the Cham Master Sheng Yen, and she started practicing meditation in 95 and then began to train in 99 with Master Sheng Yen. She trained with Simon Child to lead intensive retreats and then received full Dharma transmission in 2016. She currently teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures, and leads retreats in North America and the UK. She is the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community and a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey, where she also serves as the faculty

director of the Allen Dolly Center for the Study of Social Justice and you can find her and her writings online at Rebecca Lee dot org please welcome her back Rebecca Lee thank you Don for your wonderful introduction to bring us to this space, as Don mentioned, that many of us think of meditation practice as our 10-minute escape from reality. Actually, if we really understand what the meditation practice is for, it is about allowing us in learning

to be more fully engaged with reality. That includes everything that's happening outside of this hall. When we are interacting with people who may not think like us, with whom we might really disagree, with whom we may not have a very loving relationship. So I really like today's artwork, people expressing their anxiety from our experience here now living in this world. And with what's surrounding us, especially with the upcoming election, probably many of you have been feeling that even more intensifying. And I would say this is actually a great opportunity for us to learn how to make use of our meditative practice to live in this difficult time.

practice meditation in this simplified environment, in this hall. It is a way to train our mind so that we are able to settle the mind and allow us to be able to see the thoughts and feelings coming through our mind more clearly. Thoughts and feelings that we may not notice before. And also see that they are just thoughts. They don't have to control us. Only we allow them to. They don't have to manifest into speech and action. We have a choice. And so the practice of settling our mind, allowing us to see that it is possible to have this space that allows us to exercise choice, rather than being pushed and pulled in our life by these compulsive thoughts and feelings that come through our mind. A few months ago, I was teaching a three-day meditation retreat,

and one of the meditation sessions, we did a loving-kindness meditation. And one of the retreatants was very brave. She tried to send loving-kindness to a politician that she really did not like. And when she was sharing her experience, it was very touching because it was very, very honest. She said she noticed that she couldn't even start because just the thought of that person brought up her heart, her blood pressure

went up so high she couldn't think. And she shared how it actually had been affecting her sleep. She couldn't sleep. It's really devastating to her health. So, and this is only one of the examples. Many people have shared this experience with me in varying degrees. And this is why this is an important time for us to make sure that we apply the practice in our daily life.

And in the coming weeks, we can make use of that, especially to apply the practice to look at what arises in our mind moment after moment, and see if they're in accordance with wisdom and compassion. There's no shortage of opportunity. In fact, there might be a news item or some comments that we hear,

either being presented to us by the media or by someone we actually know around us. How do we respond? What arises in our mind when we hear that or see those messages? We might find that from time to time or quite often, this anger or aversion or actually hatred arise. What is that all about?

If we allow ourselves to really pay attention to it, are we saying in our mind things that really has to do with demonizing someone? Or really saying that they are horrible people, even though we don't really know that person. We only have been presented some fragments of what happened. Chances are these are not the entire situation. And we are so sure, just knowing a little fragment of something, we are so sure, I know, I know, I know the whole truth already.

How can we be so sure? So all these thoughts that arise and feelings, and feelings so convinced about how we already know we know everything, that justify our response, we can examine them. The mind being more subtle allows us to see that, oh, wow, interesting. I really believe, I really believe I know everything already, which is kind of quite not possible, which is kind of quite not possible, but somehow I'm so convinced, and that leads me to feel and respond in this very strong manner.

So this is a great opportunity for us to practice watching our mind, and also ask ourselves, hmm, when we see angry or hateful thought arising, actually I have students who always say, just kill them all. I was like, hmm, we might think that's a funny thought. Well, thoughts can be very powerful if we allow them to perpetuate itself, thought after thought after thought.

Because when these thoughts fill our mind enough, they turn into things we say. They turn into things we actually do. Thoughts are like seed that we allow to be spread in a garden. And if we allow them to be fertilized and watered, they grow. And hateful thoughts are like wheat, they grow easily.

We don't even need to fertilize them, they spread. And so what do we do? The practice is about taking good care of our mind, taking good care of our mind by like, when we see the thought that we thought, oh, wow, we notice that, and so that with enough clarity in our mind, we do our best not to give rise to another hateful thought.

We stop it there, gently. And that way we look after our mind and allow other thoughts to enter. after our mind and allow other thoughts to enter. The anxiety caused by too many thoughts causing confusion. It's like, how about we have these people right here who are breathing and living that we can connect with. Do we remember to appreciate them? Do we remember to appreciate that I'm alive, I'm breathing? Every night when I go to bed,

I appreciate the fact that I had a bed to sleep in. I have a roof over my head. It's like all these things that's happening right here, right now, we have this very strong tendency to completely take for granted. And so that too is part of what's going on. So when we free our mind from some of those rapidly germinating angry, hateful thoughts

that poison our heart, then we are able to appreciate also beauty and connection that's also all around us. So a few things we can think about in practicing these few weeks. One thing that's really important in our practice is to learn how to work with ourself. When we know clearly what's going on in our body and mind, then we make better decisions,

wiser decisions that's compassionate for ourselves. For example, I know people who tell me, I'm a news junkie. They watch news, cable news, or all the news feeds on their phone. And you just makes them mad. And well, but the question is, why do you do that to yourself?

Why do you do that? If you can't help getting upset by what you read and watch and hear, why do you keep inflicting pain on yourself? Is that in accordance with wisdom? Usually we kind of have some sense of what's going on. We don't need to watch the same report over and over again 20 times in the day. So that is something that we can do to improve our mental health

and also to sort of keep out the seed of hatred or anger from entering and germinating and spreading in our mind. And also when we are looking at, when we are bombarded with messages that might be quite hateful or negative, well, we can think of them as a gift someone trying to share with us. We can acknowledge that is going on,

so we're not pretending that it's not happening, but we don't have to accept them and take it as our own. We can say, no, thank you. I don't need this gift that you are trying to give me. And also, we might also want to think about how we can be mindful as we are sharing these messages. Is it going to bring actually anxiety to someone else, trigger some angry response in them,

then if we're doing that, aren't we sharing gifts of poison to others? Maybe we don't have to perpetuate and share so much of that. So we can stay informed and engaged without getting embroiled in a lot of the agitation and negativity. If we allow ourselves to use the subtle mind,

that gives us clarity to see, hmm, what am I doing? Is what I'm doing bringing joy and happiness to others? Am I causing suffering to myself? If what I'm doing is causing suffering to myself, why am I doing it? Is it wisdom? So, of course, it doesn't mean that we turn away.

Some people might think that, well, like, what's the point of even going to vote? I actually heard someone saying that, because my one vote is not going to matter. Well, our democracy, however imperfect it is, is still something that a lot of people can only dream of in other parts of the world. And also, democracy is not something

that just exists on its own. It is a product of all of us co-creating it. Like everything else, everything is the co-creation of all of us. So what we do or do not do is going to matter a great deal to what happens to us, even though we cannot see it. So it might seem like that it's not consequential, but it's not true. Whatever we do or decide not to do will make a big difference. And so we can work with ourselves to look at in what way we can engage.

I have friends who go canvassing in some neighborhood. I know people who said, all I can do is to go vote. Very good. Whatever that works with your causes and conditions. You have many things you have to do in your life. So when we engage, we also need to learn to know that we have done our best and not be attached to the outcome.

Because when we cannot let go, we get anxious. Letting go really is about accepting this is the current causes and conditions. We have done our best. We have all done things that we have done our best, and that's the outcome. It may not be the outcome that we have hoped for,

but that's the outcome at this moment. But does it mean that it's wasted? No, because what we do now has consequences far beyond today, tomorrow, and next week. So keeping in mind that we are truly interconnected, that our action had ramifications far, far beyond what we can see now. And maybe it will continue on beyond our lifespan. We won't see the consequence of our action. And keeping that in mind will allow us to be hopeful

that we know we have great capacity for everything. that we know we have great capacity for everything. Capacity to love even people we dislike. So let's take a few minutes to practice together. As we practice, we learn to relax our body and mind to connect with our innate wisdom, our innate capacity to love everyone unconditionally. And we sit with our body relaxed.

We go through a whole body relaxation from top of our head. We go through a whole body relaxation from top of our head. Feel the relaxation of the top of our head. And feel the relaxation spread to our forehead like melting butter, allowing the tension between our eyebrows to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the eyeballs and eye muscles. And feel the relaxation spread to our facial muscles.

Check to see if we're holding tension in some areas, like in the jaw or around our ears. And allow the tension to melt away. Feel the relaxation spread down the neck muscles and down to the shoulder muscles allowing the tension we hold in these muscles habitually to melt away and feel the relaxation spread down the arms all the way down to the fingertips. And feel the relaxation spread to the chest area.

Allowing the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down to the lower abdomen. Trust that the skeletal structure can hold up the body. You can give these muscles a vacation, allowing the tension to melt away. You feel the relaxation spread to the upper back and spread to the lower back all the way down to the bottom, down the thigh muscles.

Feel the relaxation to continue to spread all the way down to the toes. Feel the relaxation of the entire body sitting right here, right now. Moment after moment, allow ourselves to be fully here, appreciating this unfolding present moment, and fully experiencing the reality of our body and mind, the reality of our body and mind bodily sensations thoughts maybe memories watching them arise

and then going away on its own. And you we notice ourselves getting drowsy, or the mind going dull, we bring up this wakefulness. coming back to the body moving. That is the body breathing. Allow ourselves to fully appreciate this fact. We are alive.

That this body is breathing. How wonderful is that? that. We may notice difficult thoughts or feelings arising. We notice that, cultivate this clear awareness of what's going on. Also allowing yourself to see clearly Also allowing ourselves to see clearly that these are thoughts and allow it to leave on its own. Moment after moment, we cultivate this clarity of what's arising in the mind. to be more fully connected with ourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for coming. 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.