Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 1/16/2019 with Lama Aria Drolma

Episode Date: January 18, 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 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 with thanks to our presenting partners Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. Lama Aria Drolma led this meditation session on January 16, 2019. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: http://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/lama-aria-drolma-01-16-2019

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. Good afternoon. Tashi delek. That's how we greet in Tibetan. So we are in the Himalayan Museum. So let's try a little bit of Himalaya style, right? Welcome to all to the weekly mindfulness meditation here at the Rubin Museum. In partnership with Sharon Salzberg Interdependence Project,

the Parabola Magazine. My name is Tashi Chodron. I host a monthly program called Himalayan Heritage here at the Rubin Museum. It's always first Wednesday of each month. I see many familiar faces who continuously come to support the monthly program. Thank you. And those of you who are not familiar with the Himalayan heritage, we always connect to a very

meaningful special lunar calendar or to a most recent exhibit. And sometimes we connect to the monthly theme. So this month's theme is intention, as we have explored last couple of weeks already in the beginning of this year. So intention, for me, growing up in the Tibetan refugee camps in India, I've heard the great masters and my elders always mentioning that in our practice, intention is one of the most important things. In fact, pure intention, it's very meritorious, which leads to right thoughts, right aspiration, which then leads to, you know, your day-to-day practice. Having that intention, which is like a seed to growing the right fruit, which is like a seed to growing the right fruit. That's the kind of idea. And so each meditation we do have an art connection and for today the art

connection that you see here is the Shakya Muni Buddha which is often addressed as the historical Buddha. Now, often when I give tours on the galleries, I do mention to our audience that there are so many Buddhas in Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism. You may have heard about Medicine Buddha when we had our 10th year Bodies in Balance Tibetan Medicine Exhibition a couple years ago. So how you can identify which Buddha it is, is there are colors. Medicine Buddha is often in blue in color, you know, or in the sculptures, you often see them in this gold color, right? So you can see the color of which Buddha it is. Then you look at the gestures, the hand gestures, or the ritual objects that they're holding. So in this situation, how you can know that this is the historical Buddha, Buddha that founded Buddhism going back

almost 2,600 years ago now, yeah, is there are some of the most significant symbol gestures is the, anyone wants to volunteer? Touching the earth, that's an A-plus answer. Yes, so you know that's one of the key. As you see here, sitting in full lotus position, left hand in open meditation, right hand, palm facing the knees, fingers touching the earth. So this is the earth touching gesture and this symbolic meaning and all of that. I will leave it to our teacher to talk more on that. So for today's teacher, we are so honored to have Lama Arya Droma. She's been here before, and while I was talking to her earlier, it turned out that we were actually born in the same hood

in the southern part of India. It was so fascinating. And apparently we both went to all-girls Catholic school. Grew up in boarding school. And when Lama Drona mentioned about good shepherds, I was like, wow, OK, that's our sister boarding school growing up in southern India, where I went to all-girls Nirmala convent.

So it was fascinating to unfold all that. So Lama Arya Droma has been studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism for more than a decade, trained in the Dharma Path program of progressive stages of meditation and contemplation for serious practitioners offered by Khajuk Thutdhin Choling Monastery, which is the Khajuk lineage in Tibetan Buddhism. And Lama Arya Dorma is a graduate of traditional Tibetan Buddhist retreat spanning three years and three months. This is really an amazing transformation and such a very amazing blessing to have you here. Lama Arya Dorma attended Mumbai University in India and graduated with a BA in sociology and

is trained in computer programming from NIIT in India, which is again, you know, it's like so fascinating to find out that because I did NIIT. That was like a fashion, National Institute of Information Technology. After your college degree, then often we end up doing some course and that was like National Institute of Information Technology was a place to go. So, okay, thank you so much again for joining us and sharing your precious time. Lama Arya Doma, please help me welcome you. Aryadoma please help me welcome thank you Tashi for the lovely introduction and hello and welcome everyone thank you all for coming in today I'm absolutely delighted to be here with you all and I can still wish you all a happy new year. So wishing you all a very successful and prosperous new year.

Hope this year all your dreams and wishes will be fulfilled. This new year started off very, very well for me, and I'm really excited about 2019. So for today's image, we have of course the iconic image of the historical Shakyamuni Buddha. And whenever I see this image, it immediately brings me to a peaceful state of mind. And that is the power of an image. Anytime when you feel distressed, when there's a lot going on in your own minds, take this meditation or take these images or sculptures that you see here today and bring that into your mind. And they have a lot of blessings and there's a lot of power to these

amazing images that turns your mind into a peaceful state of mind or you'll feel compassion when you look at some wonderful images such as Shakyamuni Buddha or even a Christ on the cross. It brings out some compassion. So I was so amazed that everybody knew the mudra, the hand mudra, which is called the touching the ground. It's called Bhoomi Sparsha Mudra in Sanskrit. Bhoomi means earth, sparsha means touching, and mudra of course is gesture. So that's why it's known as the earth touching gesture. And I have a feeling that all of you may know the story,

but if anyone didn't know the story, I'm just going to give you a short story on Shakyamuni and the earth-touching gesture. The story goes that just before Buddha became enlightened, Mara, the lord of desire, tried to distract Buddha from the deep meditation. And Mara demanded Buddha to produce a witness to confirm his enlightenment. Or he said that I'm going to claim that title myself. So who is your witness that you are enlightened? enlightened.

And Buddha remained calm and unwavered and in deep meditation and simply reaches and touches the earth with his right hand. And the earth itself roared and said, I'm your witness. And Mara, the Lord of Desire, vanishes. And then shortly shortly the morning star appears in the sky and Buddha's fully enlightened so what makes Buddha's

story so powerful and meaningful is just before Buddha became enlightened. Buddha had for more than six to seven years tried everything that he could to reach enlightenment and he had gone through so much hardships and he came under this wonderful banyan tree, the Bodhi tree, and sat under the Bodhi tree and made this firm resolution that he will not get up, no matter what, until he attains enlightenment. And this fits into this month's theme, intention. So when you make strong intentions, you know, New Year's is a very good time to make these new resolutions, new intentions. And that will, there's a lot of possibility when you make strong intentions for it to come forth, for it to happen. So who is the Buddha? Here's some teachings I'm sharing from Minju Rinpoche who's a

great realized master of the Khaju lineage. Right now as we speak in Bodh Gaya where Buddha was enlightened, there's a wonderful international prayer festival going on. There's ten thousands of monks and nuns and all the disciples from all over the world attending this festival. And the whole point of this festival is to pray for the sentient beings, for happiness, for love, for global peace. And this is exactly what is happening in India right now as we speak and so all of you all who have gathered here you're doing the same thing you know when we are trying to do meditation we are bringing in within us some peaceful state of mind and when we have this peaceful state of mind and then when you meet somebody else you give that the sense of peace to that person so this is

exactly which is in other words love and compassion and this is exactly what is happening so the energy field of positivity is very very strong and if you say how is it someone is praying in India it's like when you think of somebody you know they may be in faraway country they'll you know you'll get a call from them so energy is such it has no boundaries to travel space and time so who is Buddha first of all Buddha was just like us an ordinary sentient being. He didn't have any amazing gifts or anything.

He was, of course, born to a royal family. He was an ordinary sentient being with all the mental afflictions, with ignorance, with suffering, and all the obscurations that we all have. obscurations that we all have. But all of us have the ground of the Buddha nature present within us. And if we only recognize that, then we can purify all the mental afflictions, the obscurations, the cognitive stains and so forth. When we do that, we will develop realizations,

we will develop the infinite qualities, all the wisdom, love and power. That is what we call Buddhahood. So the essence is within us already. In essence, between all the sentient beings and the Buddha, there is absolutely no difference at all. So we already have that essence. All we have to do is clear it through meditation, through merit to understanding wisdom. So within our essence and the Buddha Shakyamuni's essence there is not even the slightest difference between any of us. The only difference is Buddha Shakyamuni realized this and we haven't. In essence, we are the infinite consciousness and bliss. But we identify ourselves with the body and that is the limitations we've set upon ourselves. So we are in actuality the infinite consciousness and bliss and how can one realize this Buddha

nature if we all have this Buddha nature within us how can we realize this why haven't we realized this because we have a lot of obscurations the body has a lot of mental afflictions and one way to realize this Buddha nature one of the methods is By meditation, so I'm so happy all of you are here You as we continue to meditate I guarantee you it may be lifetimes, but we will attain enlightenment It may be lifetimes, but we will attain enlightenment. So, changing topics a little bit. How many of you all have already broken your New Year's resolutions? Wonderful, wonderful.

You know, resolutions are made to be broken and to make new ones. So today we can make new resolutions, we can set forth new intentions. And one of the resolutions we can make is making time to meditate daily. So you come here on Wednesdays, you take all the teachings and then you meditate for a week and come back again. And it takes just very few moments you know to make a small little place of peace for you and to enjoy that and I'm sure all of you know the benefits of meditation so you can make intentions to be a more peaceful person a more loving person a more kind person whatever your intentions are.

So today's a great day at this moment to make new resolutions, new intentions. And coming to intentions, my own story was, it's really uncanny. It was very much on the 16th of 2008, I went to a meditation class here in the city. I was working in Manhattan. I was working in marketing and advertising and living in Manhattan. And I went to a meditation place because that was my resolution to start meditating. meditating and it's very uncanny this was in 2008 and the 16th of 2008 was also Wednesday and on the 26th of Saturday I met my teacher and it changed my life I gave up all my job and everything and started studying the path because it was so powerful because it transformed me.

You know, meditation transformed me, and I totally believed it. So be careful when you go to meditations. You may end up as a nun. So that was 2008. You may end up as a nun. So that was 2008. 2011, I went into my three-and-a-half-year retreat, and I came out 2015.

But what I, you know, I was looking at what I had written as an intention, and the intention was change job for a better career, serve humanity. I'm so happy I wrote that because I was in Manhattan then. And then the third one was work towards better pay. And then there were a lot of other things. But this was what the intention I had made at 2008. And I can't believe that so many you know to serve humanity and to serve myself to have peace within me when I always believe when you have

peace within you inner peace outer peace outer peace global peace that's what I believe so for today's mindfulness meditation practice I'll be teaching you calm abiding meditation or tranquility meditation. We do this in the monastery as a formal practice and calm abiding meditation is known as Shinne meditation in Tibetan and Shamatha in Sanskrit. I think every time you could sometimes have a formal meditation practice and then when you have different, different teachers who teach you different forms and techniques, you can use this foundation for your meditation practice. So this meditation technique was practiced even

before Buddha's time. It was passed on from master to student and this is the foundation for all meditation practice. It has been practiced more than 2005 years ago and the practice I'm going to teach you is called Shinne in Tibetan and Shamatha in Sanskrit. You can always look it up it's Shamatha S H A M T H A and Shinne is S H I N A Y. In Tibetan the word Shinne, the first syllable Shi means peace or to pacify and the second syllable ne means to abide or rest. So shinne meditation or calm abiding meditation does two things. First we have to pacify our thoughts. Our thoughts are all over the place and you know this morning something could have made you angry, upset, you could be loving as well.

Many thoughts are going on in your mind so we have to pacify our thoughts and then you can abide in that peaceful state. So this is what Shinnei does. So when we practice calm abiding meditation, the mind needs a support. The mind needs a focus or an attention because the mind is all over the place. So it needs an anchor and this is how you can do different types of meditation which is that mind's anchor can be an object, a sound, smell, taste, tactile sensation and it can also be your breath. And so that this is the different form of meditations but today I'll be teaching you Shinne and your focus or your attention will be on your

breath. Your mind's attention will be on your breath. This is a very simple method, it's very popular and it's also, although it's extremely simple, it's very profound. So when we actually start the meditation, there are two essential points, the essential points of your body and the essential points of your mind. So there are the essential points of your body, there are essential points of your mind so I'm good there are the essential points of your body there are seven points of posture these are actual steps in the tradition and that is set these steps are set to align the body within within us we have a lot of wind channels and so these steps are passed down from master to student who attain profound realization just by doing this meditation technique that i'm teaching you all today which

some of you may have already practiced so i'll go through these postures and please note while i go through these postures we all have different bodies and capabilities. It is important that you're comfortable and in a comfortable posture and if you are not able to do all these postures just have a straight back and it's best not to better not to lean on the chair behind because eventually when you perfect the practice you will realize your mind so these body the body is not confined so the important step is for you to if you're sitting on the chair, wonderful, keep your legs paddled, not crossed. It's important that the spine should be straight, but yet you're comfortable. When the central channel inside is straight, the wind flows smoothly,

and it's said the wind and the mind is closely connected. So if the winds are flowing smoothly then the mind will naturally settle down and come to rest so if you're if you're comfortable to sit on the floor when you're practicing at home keep your legs crossed and your shoulders are square they're not rounded we are all like to you know slump a little bit but when you're meditating keep your shoulders squared. The neck should be slightly bent like this, slightly bent and the chin tucked. The lips are resting naturally, the tongue is resting on the upper palate. Now here your eyes is

slightly open but if anyone feels uncomfortable to open your eyes, you can keep your eyes closed. So the gaze is kind of downward. It's almost from four inches width past your nose. Wherever your gaze falls, just rest your gaze naturally. So let's all sit in this posture. Now, the essential points of the mind. We turn our attention from our body to our mind, because it's the mind that actually does the meditation. So today, we are focusing our attention on our breath.

And so let's put our mind's attention on our breath. All you have to do is just sit in this posture your hands very nice they're placed on the on your knees with the palms down or you can also place your hands your right hand or your left with your thumbs meet thumbs touching and you can just place it on your lap like this so there are two postures for the hands hands stretch out and put it on your lap like this so there are two postures for the hands hands stretch out and put it on your knees wherever they come you can do that so now we are back with the minds attention just breathe naturally and put your

minds attention on your breath inhaling and exhaling so let's start the meditation I'll guide you through the meditation inhale and exhale breathe normally and as you inhale see your breath in all the way going into your abdomen and as you exhale see the breath coming up out of your nostrils into space in front of you and imagine it fills the entire space and just rest in that present moment moment of awareness. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally and see your breath comes out of your nostrils and into space in front of you and just rest in that present moment of awareness. Just let go of all your worries and concerns and just rest in that present moment of awareness. any time you catch yourself thinking any thoughts just say thinking, then drop it, let it go, don't follow it, don't engage in it and return to your breath. It doesn't matter how many times your mind wanders, that's what the mind does. All that it matters is when you notice it, you bring,

you gently bring your focus back to your breath. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally, breathe naturally. Thank you. Do not follow the past, the past is finished. Do not think of the future that I must do this or I have to do that. Just put your attention on your breath, breathe normally and rest within the present moment Every time you catch yourself thinking, just say, thinking, gently let go and bring your attention back to your breath. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally and breathe gently. rest in that present moment of awareness. Meditation allows you to look inward, so when you meditate you will see a lot of thoughts, list of things you want to complete and so on. Thoughts are going to come and go.

Depending on the thoughts, emotions are going to rise. But as soon as you realize your thoughts, just say thinking and gently let them go and tell yourself this is the time to meditate. Little by little with practice you will begin to enjoy meditation and it feels peaceful and spacious. You'll have more clarity and focus. I'll ring the gong and we'll relax for a few moments. Okay, relax and just stretch a little bit. Meditation is nice when you do for short periods of time. And we are still going to continue. It's just a small stretch. And if you wonder,

how does meditation help me in my ordinary day-to-day life? So with this practice, when you sit and practice, and when you see thoughts come and go, you know, when the the moment you catch yourself thinking you say thinking and you let go of your thought and that's what you can do in your daily life you know when you have strong emotions you're like okay that how does any emotions arise it's always the thought first everything you see it was the thought first and then it was created. Our emotions, the anger that comes up, the hate that comes up, the love, the joy, everything is a thought. So when you familiarize yourself with your mind, your thoughts, when anger arises, you're like, okay, angry. angry where did this source come from I'm

going to let it go I have other wonderful things to do and this is how you bring this meditation to your day-to-day life here you practice because you're putting your attention on and that's what you do in your daily life I'm going to put my attention on my breath. Easier said than done. But when you practice, this is what you can do. So this is why we have formal practices. So again, we're going to put all our attention back to a few more minutes of meditation. And when you go out of this meditation, when you go out and do your daily routine, whatever you're doing,

and when you have thoughts, you know, something upsets you or something bothers you, you can say, oh, those are my thoughts. I can let it go. I have the capabilities to let it go. And let me focus on my breath. And you focus on your breath gently. And this is what you can do in you know if you're traveling in the train anyway you can you're walking you can take this

meditation anywhere and that's why focusing on your attention on your breath is so simple and wonderful so we'll do a little more few more minutes Back to your posture. Sit up straight, comfortably, and your legs parallel on the floor. Inhale and exhale, breathe naturally. Now all you have to do is just put your attention on your breath out and let your breath fill the entire space as you breathe out and just rest in that present state of awareness. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally, breathe gently, and as you exhale, let your breath fill the entire space in front of you.

And just rest in that present moment of awareness. When a thought or an emotion or a sensation arise, as soon as you recognize it, simply say, that's a thought, that's an emotion. Do not follow after the content or engage in them, just let go and come back to your attention on your breath and rest in that present moment of awareness. Thank you. Inhale and exhale, breathe your breath fill the entire space in front of you. And just relax. The idea is not to block your thoughts. We are not stopping the thoughts or blocking them. We are just not paying attention at this moment. Thoughts are going to come and go. They are like the clouds in the sky. They come and go and leave no trace. Just like the birds in the sky leaving no trace I'll ring the gong right now.

Relax. And you can stretch a little. 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.