Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 11/23/2016 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: January 4, 2017

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. Presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg and the Interdependence Project. Sharon Salzberg led this meditation session on November 23, 2016. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: http://bit.ly/2mbiL7q

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 slash meditation. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the teachers from the Interdependence Project and 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. it's a delight as always to have Sharon Salzberg in the house and as you know she is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barrie, Massachusetts she's been studying and teaching for over 45 years, and she's the author of some fabulous books, many of which you can find upstairs in the shop, and that includes her most recent book, Real Happiness at Work. Please welcome Sharon Salzberg.

From one angle, we are living in the unexpected always. We just forget, or we overlook that, or we are primed so much to try to seize a sense of control over unfolding of events, rather than being with and connecting to and having the flexibility and resilience to move according to events. And if I look at an image like that Buddha, I think of stability, you know,

but it's not like brittle stability, like holding on for dear life or closing down perception of change, but there's something steadfast there's something dignified there's something reliable accessible no matter what may be going on and it's great to see the buddha depicted in as as would be traditional in terms of the legends around the Buddha, depicted in many, many lifetimes, during which he was really, it's said, kind of cultiv as a prince. He could go beyond what his teachers had attained. He could go beyond the strictures that society was placing upon him or the limits of what it was felt a human being could

know and open to and understand at that time so in his um last life when he was the buddha uh all of those lifetimes of practicing generosity and kindness and patience and as a bunny rabbit or a phoenix or whatever he was throughout all those lifetimes, it all added up. And it culminated in this moment when, as the legend has it, the Buddha, then known as the Bodhisattva, or being aspiring to enlightenment, sat down under a tree known as the Bodhi tree. And he sat down with the determination,

the aspiration of not getting up unless he had become fully enlightened, unless he'd really woken up and broken through all of the constraints of conditioning and training and so on. And as soon as he sat down, he was attacked by this legendary figure known as Mara. Mara is sort of like the satanic figure in Buddhist teaching. And Mara is also like not an underworld creature, but a heavenly creature who didn't want the Bodhisattva to leave his dominion, right, to kind of go beyond where he had. So he attacked the Bodhisattva with all these various elements, wanting him to give up, to get up.

He appeared as these loathsome, shrieking, horrible apparitions to try to scare him, and these very seductive images to try to seduce him, and all kinds of things. And throughout all of that, the Bodhisattva would just sit there, steadfast. And then the last attack of Mara was, we would probably call it self-doubt. He said, especially if you're from New York, he said, basically, who do you think you are? You know, to dare to imagine you.

How can you even imagine that you are capable of that much understanding and love and wisdom and connection? Like, get up. And that's when, in many images you'll see everywhere in Buddhist art, the Bodhisattva reached his hand over his knee and touched the earth and asked the earth itself to bear witness to all of the lifetimes in which he had practiced

generosity, morality, patience, all of these truthfulness, all of these qualities, so that he wasn't there kind of empty-handed he had resource he had a sense of belonging that was crafted out of the integrity of those efforts and he touched the earth and said the earth shook in bearing witness to those lifetimes mar realized he was defeated and he ran off into the night and the Bodhisattva sat through the night and was fully enlightened

at the appearance of the first morning star at dawn. And so 2,600 years later, as a consequence of that stick-to-itiveness, here we are in Chelsea. Or is it the Flatiron, where we are? Here we are, right? All these years later in another whole place because of that moment, right? Just hang in there. You have the right to be there. So for any of us in any situation, that is part of what we search for. Like, where is our integrity? What's that stability? What's that steadfastness that isn't going to be defined by present moment

circumstance, but is also not, you know, uptight and avoiding the reality of what one is experiencing right now. So, you know, all kinds of imagery is used for that depiction of strength. It's like bamboo. It's flexible, but not really breakable. It's like space. The Buddha said very beautifully, develop a mind so filled with love it resembles space that cannot be painted cannot be marred cannot be ruined so open so free so unconfined it's like if somebody was standing here in the middle of this room throwing

paint around in the air there's nowhere in this space the paint is going to land. Right? There's something about that much openness that also sustains us and gives us a kind of stability. The paint isn't going to ruin the space, even if it's a horrible, horrible color. even if it's a horrible, horrible color. So what is untainted, what's not defined, that's also where we rest our attention.

We find that kind of stability, steadfastness, ability to hang in there through all of those taunts and threats and seductive efforts, whether it's a very personal Mara that we're facing today or it's a more collective Mara that we're facing today, all those voices that urge us to forget those years, perhaps lifetimes, of commitment to generosity, patience,

caring about one another, compassion, all of those qualities, the things that we could be drawing upon for that sense of resource. So how do we define strength? How do we define stability? Can we feel our way into what feels like taking that seat,

touching the earth, remembering what we really care about finding one another if that's a source of strength and it usually is can we feel our way to that stability that isn't rigid and uptight and withholding, but is very much there, that kind of presence, so that we're not cutting off what is all around us or within us, and we're also not just lying down and being steamrolled by it and shaped by it in some way. The unexpected, it's like so here. And sometimes I think we associate that notion only with that which is shattering and traumatic.

And I was doing fine. I was just going along and then that happened, whatever it is. But really, when we look at a day, we look at a week, we look at an hour, we're just skating. It's like life itself is so volcanic with so many conditions coming together in any moment for anything to happen. Nothing is independent. Nothing is removed or remote from all of those causes and conditions.

Like sometimes if I'm in a car driving back into New York City from somewhere, we get to the toll booth, which increasingly doesn't have human beings anymore, you know, and it's got like that mechanical arm that lifts up. Sometimes I sit in the car and I look at that thing that needs to raise up and I think, what goes into making that thing work? I think, what goes into making that thing work? And what happens if it doesn't work? It's like we're sitting here, there are all these cars behind us sitting here.

We are counting on this intricacy of things working. And some of you know, you know, in the process of buying a new car right now for my home in Massachusetts. And I discovered that I don't know how to, like, drive a modern car. Because I have a 1999 car, and it needs to be a four-wheel drive so I can get up the driveway and stuff like that. So, you know, I sat in, like, a Subaru, and I don't know how to start a car without a key. That's a problem. You know, I just sat there and the

salesman started yelling at me like step on the brake. And I thought that stops the car. Why does that start the car? I don't get it. You when I'm used to when I want to know what's behind me I turn around. I don't even know how I'm going to drive this next car. I guess I can always turn around if I need to. Life moved on without me. I had the same old car. I've Well, I have the same old car. You know, like, I've got to adjust. I've got to get with it, at least to some degree. Right?

Everything is moving. It's changing. And every moment, all these conditions need to come together for something to work out. OK? Or it doesn't. It starts to fall apart. And this is our lives. It's true, always.

And I think this is the kind of time where it's very interesting to look back at what we have tended to do to be resilient. Because resilience means meeting change. Right? So what have we done? We've all needed resilience. We've all counted on something to give us perspective, let us have a break,

not be so caught in the actual circumstance that we can't see beyond it in any way. So what have we looked toward? Any of us? And think about that. And then think about, even if you were to make a list of those things, whatever they are,

think about the last time you, well, first of all, think about how you feel about them if you make a list. Because some things we may see on that list and think, you know, that was terrific. Too bad I haven't done it in three and a half years, right? Gone out in nature, for example, or something like that. There may be some things we put on the list. When we look at it, we think, that's pretty destructive, actually. That's kind of damaging.

I think that would be well left behind if I find other tools and other strategies for making my way and finding that kind of stability. See how you feel about each of those, whatever they might be. Because we have them. We each have them. We all have them. And then think about what we're about to do together, of course,

And then think about what we're about to do together, of course, which is some meditation practice as something you add to that list, something you replace something on the list with, however it strikes you if you're inspired to, because in actually doing the meditation practice, this is what we're practicing. A kind of strength that's very supple, a sense of space, so that it's like spacious,

no matter what's going on, we can have like kind of a bigger perspective about things, which isn't avoiding what's going on. It's really connecting to what's going on, but it's in that sense of a bigger arena. It's having that sense of immediacy and real presence that's not living so far into the future, that not only are we dealing with real difficulty, we're dealing with completely imagined difficulty, which is sort of like extra, that's extra stress. The process itself with meditation is like the lived reality of what we're talking about

as that very particular kind of strength and stability as we face the true unexpected of everyday life. So let's sit together a little bit. Said right away, our posture reflects some of that sensibility you want some energy in your body but not like so much you're really stiff and uptight you also want to be relaxed and at ease but not like so at ease you're just like waist slumped over, ready to fall over. So feel your way into what feels like a balanced posture to you.

And you can close your eyes or not. So imagine you're the bodhisattva sitting under that tree. You're resting your attention on the feeling of your breath, the actual sensations of your breath, wherever you feel it most distinctly. Maybe that's the nostrils or the chest or the abdomen. Find that spot. Bring your attention there and rest.

See if you can feel one breath. You don't need to look at what's already gone by. You don't need to lean forward for even the very next breath. It's just this one. Thank you. If you like, you can use a quiet mental notation like in, out, or rising, falling to help support the awareness of the breath, but very quiet so your attention's really going to feeling the breath, one breath at a time.

And as you sit there minding your own business, Mara strikes. All those seductive images, all those frightening apparitions. So much going on. Maybe that's self-doubt attack. See if you can recognize that's what's happening right now, without getting caught up in it.

And return your attention to the feeling of the breath. And if you find you fall asleep or you get completely lost in thought or spun out in a fantasy, truly don't worry about it. We say the most important moment in the whole process is the next moment after you've been gone, after you've been lost. We practice letting go of distraction, whatever it is, whenever we realize we've been caught. We let go gently, and we return our attention back to that primary object,

the feeling of the breath. We let go and we begin again. And we let go and we begin again. So this in itself is a kind of tremendous training and resilience. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Takk for ating med.... I want you to remember in this holiday season and beyond that no matter what's going on, you can breathe. And if you can breathe, you can find a place that's okay. And if you can breathe, you for listening. Have a mindful day.