Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 10/5/2016 with Kate Johnson

Episode Date: November 15, 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 Interdependence Project. This week’s session will be led by Kate Johnson focusing on Wise Effort. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: rma.cm/1f1

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 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. Kate Johnson is our teacher today, and it's a pleasure to have her back.

She teaches mindful yoga in New York City public schools and Buddhist meditation at the Interdependence Project. She holds a BFA in dance from the Alvin Ailey School at Fordham University and a Master's of Arts in Performance Studies from NYU. She has trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, with whom we partner to bring the series to you, Laughing Lotus Yoga, and the Presencing Institute, and she is currently working on a book about waking up to power and oppression as a spiritual practice, which will be published in the fall of 2017 by Parallax Press. Please welcome her back, Kate Johnson.

Hi. Good afternoon. It's nice to be here, and I was just thinking, like, wow, how, yeah, amazing to be able to pause in the middle of our day, in the middle of our lives and take a moment to look at beautiful, meaningful artwork and to practice together. Just have this wave of gratitude around that. So with these images of Manjushri, I thought that maybe we could talk a little bit about the

topic of wise effort, which is a theme in really all traditions of Buddhism, but it's definitely a theme that's foregrounded in the Theravada Buddhist practice. And so I thought we could talk a little bit about this, yeah, this theme of effort as it expresses itself in our mindfulness practice, kind of what we effort towards and how we apply that effort, and then thinking about how we can even call in

this energy of Manjushri as a way to support our wise effort in meditation practice. So this teaching is on four wise efforts that the Buddha gave. It uses this analogy of a garden, the image of a garden. And so it said that in order to practice wise effort or skillful effort, we should first continue to water the good qualities, the wholesome qualities that have already blossomed in the garden of our experience, right? The ways in which we're already patient, already kind, already generous, to actually pay attention to those and to continue to cultivate

those qualities. So that's the first wise effort, cultivating what is already wholesome. The second is to try to plant wholesome seeds where they haven't yet arisen. So perhaps we know that generosity or energy is something that is difficult for us, that we'd actually seek to cultivate those, actively cultivate those qualities. So that's the first two. And then the third wise effort is said to be to decline to water the kind of unwholesome or unhealthy mental habits or activities that we practice. So to just kind of like see those plants and skip over them as we're watering our garden, you know, let them kind of wilt.

And the fourth is to not plant seeds for unhealthy behaviors or mental habits that have not yet arisen. So, you know, like don't start smoking if you haven't already done it, you know, like that. And so these first two wise efforts are really about cultivation, about like bringing in healthy, skillful, positive qualities, ones that benefit us, ones that benefit others. And the second two are ones that require us to actually engage what I've come to think of as a sacred no in our practice. This is where I think that we can bring in the energy of Manjushri and this sword of wisdom, which is said to help sever us from our attachments. It's a little intense phrasing around that. He didn't have like a good PR person, I guess. But the idea here is that, you know, particularly with this third wise effort of declining to continue to water unwholesome seeds that have already been planted.

This requires a healthy amount of energy. And I think I like to foreground this because sometimes there's this perception that with mindfulness practice, we're kind of taking a backseat to our experience and we're watching phenomena, empty phenomena rolling along, which is part of the practice, right? It's knowing what's happening as it's arising. But part of that knowing, the wisdom in that knowing, is also knowing when to stop so that we can see ourselves engaging in a mental habit that we've done over and over again, and we can actually have this internal sacred know of like, not today, or not right now, or just no, straight up no. So you might, as I'm talking

right now, be considering working with a particular mental habit that you already know that you have. If there's not one that's coming up for you, I thought maybe I would offer you one of mine, which is the judging mind. I don't know if you've ever judged yourself or anyone else. But it's an expression of aversion, sometimes directed towards ourselves or our environment or others. And when I notice it in meditation practice, it's often like I'll notice that my brow is a little furrowed or I'm like, I have this internal kind of like grittiness, you know. And there's a sense that on an energetic level, I'm kind of saying to myself, the way that I'm practicing is not okay, it's not good enough, or the seat is not right, or it would be a better practice if I had a different neighbor.

that, well, for one, that we can see, as if Manjushri and the awareness of the turning of the wheel of Dharma, that we can see that the judging mind doesn't actually, I mean this is to separate judgment a little bit from discernment, right? But that the judging mind doesn't actually result in greater happiness for ourselves or others often. And so having seen that that's really painful or unwholesome or unhealthy for us, we create a strong intention to let that go. And so when we see that judging mind arise in practice, the sacred no, the sword of wisdom comes out, we just cut it off and continue to work with the primary object of mindfulness, in this case, the breathing. And just to say, you know, with this, you know, I think I always try to preface it with a sacred no, because I think that the quality of that no is important, that it's not the kind of no where we notice that we're judging,

and then we say no and start to judge ourselves for judging, or that it's actually the kind of energy with which a parent or caregiver would pull a child away from the street or from something that's harming them. No. So that the no really comes from love, comes from understanding and a desire not to hurt ourselves or others. So I think that's all I want to say about the practice right now, but we'll go ahead and have some time to practice, and then we'll have time for questions after.

The practice that we'll be doing today is a mindfulness of breathing practice. But I guess I want to offer that if you don't want to use breath, basically we're using breath because for many people this is a place that feels kind of comfortable and soothing and neutral, but kind of on the pleasant side of neutral. So if you find that focusing on the breath, it feels agitating at all, I want to suggest that you find another place to rest your awareness and sensation, perhaps the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet. And we'll call wherever you're resting your awareness

the object of meditation or the home base, right? It's the place that your mind is coming back to again and again where it feels safe and it feels restful and it feels familiar and kind of at ease. So yeah, so setting up for practice, finding a seat that feels relatively comfortable, resting the feet on the floor if that's possible. Letting the hands rest. Palms down or palms up or clasped in the lap. Just a place where the hands can feel like they can rest and soften. feel like they can rest and soften.

Softening the skin of the face and the muscles of the face and softening the jaw. Allowing the shoulders to relax. Relaxing the space of the heart relaxing the belly so that there's a sense of deep settling into this seat at this moment and at the same time there's's an alertness within that relaxation that the spine is long, kinds of openness in the chest.

And that even with the body relaxing, the mind is awake, and noticing the sensations of the body sitting at this moment. And I'm resting in this broad knowing, knowing what it's like to be in a human body, sitting on the earth, this moment in time. And then allowing your awareness to settle on an object of meditation that's sensory, so the sense of the body breathing, feeling the sensations that come with inhaling and exhaling. Could be feeling the hands or the feet resting on the lap or feet on the floor. Just gathering the awareness around a simple sensory experience. Allowing the mind to rest. and maybe even delight in the reflection

that this is a wholesome activity this applying effort towards mindfulness Det er en hel del av de flådigheter som vi har. Takk for ating med. 1. And then I'm going to go ahead and do that. That's really just as simple as this, allowing the mind to rest in the sensation of the body breathing, the hands resting, feet resting. Takk for ating med. And from time to time, noticing too what's happening in the mind. And if there's any habit patterns that you feel are unhealthy or unwholesome judging or comparing

or fixing you can give it a strong no. Or just simply say, I renounce you, judging mind. Or imagining the sword of wisdom coming down and setting you free. And then returning again to the home base for the awareness,

whatever the anchor for the attention is. Thank you. Takk for watching! 1. Thank you. So we'll continue to let the sensation of the body, the body breathing or the hands or feet be the home base for awareness, a place where we can rest and track the moment-to-moment sensation. And from time to time, just noticing if there's any mental activity where we feel caught. And noticing what it is and saying no or seeing the sword come down

in a compassionate way. And then allowing yourself to come back to the sensation of this moment. Takk for watching! Gå in. Thank you. Takk for watching! Okay. Thank you. Noticing again, how is it now in the mind? taking the opportunity to disentangle or separate from any thought pattern that feels harmful or unskillful. The sacred no. Not going down that road. Not right now.

And then letting the mind return and rest in your chosen anchor for awareness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Takk for watching! And as we move into this last few moments of practice, just refreshing your awareness of your body sitting at this moment. And taking a moment to reflect on the practice that we did today. remembering any moment that you experienced of actually being able to stop an unhealthy thought pattern and to refrain from going down that road, that mental road.

and kind of delighting in that capacity that we all have that with effort it's possible to change. So I'll go ahead and ring the bell to close the practice. So thank you for that. Thank you for being willing to practice with that sacred no, with the kind of sword of wisdom energy. I think it's a little more active and engaged than sometimes we work with in mindfulness practice and there's there's lots of ways to practice mindfulness but one of the things that I really like about this is I feel like it helps me to train in you're not only saying no to unskillful mental behavior, but also that sometimes there's behavior out in the world, right, where I have an opportunity to interrupt harm to myself or to someone else or to our earth, you know, and so that this kind of meditation can actually prime us to say, you know,

no to go to pipeline, you know what I mean? Like, no, not going to happen. Thank you so much for your practice today. I really appreciate being here with you. 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 Ruben Museum members,

just one of the many benefits of membership. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.