Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 1/20/16 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: January 27, 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 and the New York Insight Meditation Center. This week’s session will be led by Sharon Salzberg focusing on the Buddha and the Three Jewels. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: http://rma.cm/o6

Thank you. If you would like to join us in person, please visit our website at brokenmuseum.org. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the teachers from the Interdependence Project on 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 museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. Sharon Salzberg is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barrie, Massachusetts, has been teaching and practicing for many years, and is the author of many fabulous books, which you can find from the bookshop including Real

Happiness at Work. Please welcome back Sharon Salzberg. I was just talking to someone saying how I began my meditation practice and Dawn was like so discreet and lovely about the years. I mean, in one way it's an accolade, another way it points to my age, in that I have now been practicing meditation for 45 years. January is my anniversary month. I started January 7th, which astonishes me.

Every time I say that, I think, don't you mean 20 years? Don't you mean like four years? But nonetheless, that's true. And I started practice in this town called Bodh Gaya in India, which is the town that's grown up around the tree, which is the descendant of the tree, it said the Buddha was sitting under when he became enlightened, when he actually made that gesture, which I'll talk about in a second, of his hand over his knee. And he became enlightened, and it was

kind of amazing, I think, as a gift to practice there, because in all of these traditions the Buddha's always talked about as a human being and he had some very very basic questions about human life like what does it mean to be born into a body to be an infant so helpless so subject to the actions of those around us, and to grow older, to get sick, to die, whether we want that or not? And is there a kind of happiness that isn't broken as the body does its thing? And what does it mean to have a human mind, which is this cascade of changing emotions

where you might wake up full of happiness, and then you're afraid, and then you're angry, and then you're joyous, you're angry and then you're you're joyous and then it's just like without the ability to put the brakes on none of us can successfully say I thought about it really carefully and I've decided never to be afraid again or I've grieved long enough that's over now right when conditions come together for something to arise, it will arise. So here too, is there a quality of happiness that isn't going to be shattered, even as these emotions may roll through? And it's said that whatever the Buddha found in terms of resolution or answer, he found

through the power of his own awareness, and so can we. So the Buddha is a human being with a capacity for learning, for growth, for wisdom, for love, and so is each one of us. And here we are. So we look at the Buddha to see something about ourselves. So there I was in Bodh Gaya, and it was so kind of homey. People would point to, of course, there is the place where it said the Buddha was actually sitting when he became enlightened,

and then, oh, that's the place where he did walking meditation for seven days, and that's the place where he, as the legend goes, as Don was saying, he left home. He struggled with very severe ascetic practices, I think for us symbolizing a sort of self-punishment as a path to liberation. He ended up deciding that wasn't the way either, neither the excessive indulgence nor the self-punishment, and came upon this notion of the middle way. And so the moment he came upon it, he actually ate. He hadn't eaten in a very, very long time.

And he ate this milk rice or kheer. If you go to an Indian restaurant, order it just in case. It's the last thing he ate before he got enlightened. And, you know, someone points to the plate. So that's where he sat when he ate the milk rice. And so he felt very close in so many ways. And in the Theran tradition, the Buddhism of Southeast Asia, the word that we call teacher is kalyanamitu,

which really means spiritual friend. And they say the Buddha was the best of all possible friends. He was the best friend we could have. And that was the feeling. It's like, oh yeah, he's kind of around somewhere as a friend. And that was something to really cherish because it didn't feel like that attainment was so completely remote from the realities of our

own lives, whatever day-to-day existence might present. And so that possibility of growth, of understanding, of learning, of love, of wisdom, was always held to be within each one of us. And that's why we actually practice meditation, because that potential exists. So that gesture, that mudra of the Buddha, he was actually still the Bodhisattva, but it was before his enlightenment, but he was already sitting under the tree,

is my very favorite one, with his hand over his knee. It said that having eaten his milk rice, the Bodhisattva, being aspiring to enlightenment, went off to sit. And he went and sat under the tree with the determination not to get up until he was completely free. And Mara, who's like a mythical figure, a legendary figure, attacked him. Mara's sort of like this satanic figure in Buddhism. He's a deity, he's like an angel, but he didn't want the Bodhisattva to become enlightened

and therefore outside of his own sway, his own domination. So he attacked him through the night with all these various means to try to get the Bodhisattva to just give up and say, forget it. to just give up and say forget it. He started with these very sensuous images, trying to persuade him through lust to give up, and the Bodhisattva just sat there. And frightening, ghoulish imagery and horrible sounds,

again trying to get the Bodhisattva to give up, he just sat there composed and this went on and the last army of mara as it's called the last confrontation was basically through self-doubt he more or less said to the bodhisattva, like, who do you think you are to even dare to imagine you can be free, that you can break through the bonds of conditioning, that you can experience that much wisdom and kind of unconditional love and compassion? Who do you think you are?

And it said that the Bodhisattva in response made that gesture. He put his hand over his knee and touched the earth. And he asked the earth to bear witness to the, as they would say, many lifetimes in which he had practiced virtue and generosity and patience. And all of these qualities that gave him the absolute right to have that big an aspiration. So he reached his hand over his knee, touched the earth, the earth shook in response. Mara knew that he was defeated and he ran off into the night. The Bodhisattva sat there and was enlightened at the appearance of the first morning star at dawn

and as a consequence here in Chelsea 2500 years later we are together at one o'clock so I love that sense because of course most of us are haunted by at least some degree of self doubt like can I really you know like because, of course, most of us are haunted by at least some degree of self-doubt.

Like, can I really, you know, like, be happier, be better, be free? And it's such a symbol for us, like, absolutely. If you have that notion, then you actually can fulfill it. If you have that aspiration, you can make it real. Each one of us is said to have that capacity. So when we look at the Buddha, especially in an image like that, with that kind of symbolism,

we're really seeing something about ourselves. And that potential, which may be covered over usually, is very hard to find, kind of obscured, or hard to trust. It's there. And that is why we meditate. We don't meditate so much, hopefully, from a sense of being so deficient and kind of awful and thinking we're going to get the great experience. It's going to make us okay.

We're already okay in a lot of ways, but we may not fulfill that promise very often. We get too confused. We get busy. We get overwhelmed. We forget. We forget what actually makes us happy. We forget our own ability to connect to others.

So we're kind of unlayering some of those obstacles, some of those obscurations, to come back to a place where we feel more confidence in that ability. So let's sit together. Thank you. so let's sit together the hallmark of the middle way of the middle path is balance remember the Buddha spent those early years in self-indulgence

and then six years in self-mortification and then he decided neither was the way so balance is really a key quality self-mortification, and then he decided neither was the way. So balance is really a key quality in meditation practice. And some amount of balance is said to be reflected right away in our posture. See if your back can be straight without being strained. You want some energy in your body, but not like so much energy. You're really uptight.

You also want to be relaxed and at ease, but not like so relaxed that your waist slumped over. So feel your way into what seems like a balanced posture to you. And you can close your eyes or not, however you feel most comfortable. If your eyes are closed and you get really sleepy, it's totally fine to open your eyes and just continue on. You can start by just listening to sound, the sound of my voice or other sounds. It's a way of relaxing deep inside, allowing our experience to come and go. Of course we like certain sounds and we don't like others. But we don't have to chase after them

to hold on or push away. Just let them come, let them go. Thank you. And bring your attention to the sensations of your body sitting, whatever you discover.... Bring your attention to your hands and see if you can make the shift from the more conceptual level to the direct perception of sensation picking up, pulsing, throbbing, pressure, heat, cold, whatever it might be.

You don't need to name these things, but feel them.... and bring your attention to the feeling of your breath, just the normal, natural breath, wherever you feel it most distinctly, maybe the nostrils or the chest or the abdomen. And just like with your hands, you're aiming your attention toward the actual sensations of the breath. You can find that place where the breath is clearest for you.

Bring your attention there and just rest. See if you can feel one breath. Thank you. And 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 is really going to feeling the breath, one breath at a time. And if sounds or images or sensations or emotions should arise, but they're not very strong, if you can stay connected to the feeling of the breath,

just let them flow on by. You're breathing. It's just one breath. Thank you.... If something picks up your awareness and spins you away, you get lost in thought and fantasy, you fall asleep, really don't worry about it. We say the most important moment is the next moment, after you've been gone, after you've been lost and distracted.

This is the moment where we have the chance to not judge ourselves and not blame ourselves, but gently let go and just bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. So if you have to do that a few billion times in the next few minutes, that's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes this week's practice if you'd like to attend in person please check out our website rubenmuseum.org 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