Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 12/19/2018 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: December 21, 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 14:00. 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. Sharon Salzberg led this meditation session on December 19, 2018. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: http://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/sharon-salzberg-12-19-2018

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. 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. Hello, welcome. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art and to our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. My name is Dawn Eshelman. I see many familiar faces here, and it's great to have you all here. Just since this is our last practice of the year,

we'll be away next week, but back on the second, just in time for all those New Year's resolutions. And thanks for coming during this kind of time of a lot of activity and busyness to just join together to pause and practice. It's a generous thing to do generous for yourself and there is a such a feeling of generosity here in this community and that is what we're talking about this month generosity true generosity this is often a season of gift giving but it's helpful to just kind of drill down into what that concept actually means. And so we've been talking about this month just the spirit of generosity, being generous to ourselves and our practice, and what it means to truly be generous with others and our attention.

And I was grateful to be able to delve into these very meaningful topics with you all. So we are looking at an offering table here behind me today. It is carved out of wood and painted in beautiful, bright colors. This is from Tibet, 19th century. And this is used for the ritual display of offerings. It's found in our galleries upstairs as part of the shrine room. And indeed, in a shrine, there will be often table for offerings. Offerings is a very essential part of the way the practitioner interacts with the shrine. And in fact, offerings and that motion of generosity is really so much a part of Tibetan Buddhist culture.

So greeting each other, there is often an offering. There's an offering of a katak to any kind of visitors or travelers coming through, and it's the way that practitioners begin. And often on, you know, there are different types of offerings that can be found, but particularly those that are pleasing to the senses are very important, right? So form, sound, smell, taste, and touch. And I know the goal with the Shrine Room is really to help call in all of those senses for the viewer, trying to give a real sense of what that experience

is like. So in Tibetan Buddhism, it's customary to often offer seven bowls of water. And that represents the seven limbs of prayer. Those are prostrating, offering, confession, rejoicing in the good qualities of oneself and others, requesting the Buddhas to remain in this world, and asking them to teach others, and dedicating the merits. Also on the table you will find candles or butter lamps and incense. So you can think of this today as a symbol of generosity and what we all put on our metaphoric tables of offerings to each other as we go throughout our days. So nice to have Sharon Salzberg here with us. Welcome back Sharon. She is, as

many of you know already, the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barrie, Massachusetts. She has been studying and teaching for over 45 years. She is just a renowned and respected and beloved teacher and author of many fabulous books, great gifts by by the way, most recently, Real Love. Please welcome her back, Sharon Salzberg. Hello. I hadn't quite realized it was the last sitting of the year. Not the last sitting altogether, but the last sitting on a Wednesday at one a year. Well, welcome, everybody.

It's interesting as the time goes by and when people are asked who's here for the first time, and fewer and fewer hands go up. So I think, how beautiful, really, a community formed here. And it's forming. It's still open. And how great to get to talk about generosity of all things. One of the things I really like about the topic is that you can just kind of see the thread of that topic appearing here and there, and more and more places as you consider different elements of, say, the Buddha's approach to a happy life, or even to enlightened life.

So they say, for example, whenever the Buddha spoke to lay people, you know, people who were householders, he always began with talking about generosity for a few reasons. One is that everybody has something to give. Even if one doesn't have a great amount materially, you can smile at somebody, you can thank somebody. You can take a moment and listen to somebody.

Or as they were speaking in this agrarian culture, he said, if you knew the power of generosity the way I did, you would not let a single meal pass by without sharing something, even if it was like a grain of rice from your meal to an ant. So we don't like to think of the urban equivalent, so let's just make it. You can smile at somebody or, you know, you can spend a moment and actually think about, as Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master would say, you know, he'll hold up like a string bean or something and he'll say, now see the universe. Because somebody planted that seed, and creatures live in that soil, and

somebody harvested that crop and transported it and prepared it or sold it to us. There's a lot of life involved in that string bean getting on our plate. We can take a moment and reflect on that. That gratitude is actually a kind of generosity as well. And reflect on that. That gratitude is actually a kind of generosity as well. Another reason I really like the approach of looking at generosity is that if everybody has something to give, that means there's a capacity within us. That's really quite beautiful.

That's why I chose this table. I just thought, oh, that's beautiful. That sense of offering, of giving. And when we give with the right kind of motivation, not because we're obliged to or a lot of people are looking or something like that, then it reunites us with something inside of ourselves that's enough, that's sufficient, that's not so afraid. One of the interesting trails in one's own mind that we can look at and I think learn a lot from is looking at that relationship between the urge to give, to offer, to share,

and the fear that then commonly ensues. And just keep paying attention to what everything feels like. One of the practices we do at the retreat center I co-founded, the Insight Meditation Society is in Barry, Massachusetts, and there's kind of like a resident community. There's staff there, and then there are people who end up staying there, and so on. So sometimes as a community, we undertake these practices just for fun. And one of them is if you have a strong impulse to give something away,

not just like a very mild, vague thought, but it comes up in you, you really want to give something away. And it won't harm anybody. As I say, you know, never give up your rent-controlled apartment. And not everyone understands what that means around the country, I will say. But you all understand what it means. Never give away your rent-controlled apartment.

And so you've got this strong impulse to give, and it won't harm anybody, give it. Even if the next 50 thoughts after the urge are fearful. Well, you know, I've carried that book through four sublet moves, and I haven't read it yet, but it's very close to the top of the pile. And, you know, I know it's the only thing I need to read. It's the only thing left out, and then I'll really be free. And so maybe I shouldn't give it. I'll just carry it through the next five moves, you know. So you watch your mind. What does it feel like when you have that urge to give, to share? What does it feel like when you're withholding, when you're scared?

What does it feel like in the giving? And what does it feel like later? Do you ever actually regret it? And it's through our own examination, through our own observation, that we see the nature of generosity, that kind of relinquishing, that opening, that caring about somebody else when it's from that particular spirit, when it's really the right spirit.

They say also that the best kind of generosity, as is taught in this context, comes from a sense of inner abundance, or at least inner sufficiency, right? And I think we all probably have some glimpses of that. I know, certainly, I know people who don't have much materially, but they're incredibly generous. And maybe people who have a whole lot more by any external measure, but don't even seem to have the feeling they have enough ever. And it's very hard in that circumstance to give. So some sense of inner abundance or at least inner sufficiency, we feel whole. And then the giving is so natural, it's so inevitable. It doesn't feel forced or

strained or like an assignment, you know. It just happens so beautifully. And there's so much to learn about that. And then maybe the last thing I'll say is that it really, you know, generosity manifests in so many different ways. And we have that opportunity to keep it in mind and to practice it. It's one of those qualities where it's very clear that the internal discipline and the external discipline go together. The more that we practice generosity, like letting go of thoughts, right? It's a kind of generosity, just relinquishing, relinquishing fixation, things like that. The more we practice internally, the easier it is externally. And the more we practice externally, remembering to thank somebody, giving

somebody, you know, when we have something, thinking to offer it or share it, the more that will affect us internally. And it really reveals how this is all in one piece. So I'm going to lead a sitting, and then at the very end of the sitting, I'm going to myself, out loud, do this very short kind of ritual ending to a sitting. It's an elaborate ritual, but it's known as sharing merit. And the idea is that, or the belief is that, when we do something towards the good, like we're kind, we're generous, we are restrained. Like it would be awfully easy to tell a lie, but we don't. We tell the truth. We practice generous. We are restrained. Like, it would be awfully easy to tell a lie, but we don't.

We tell the truth. We practice meditation, even if it feels like it's totally crummy. You know, we practice. So we want to learn. We're thinking about things. We're questioning things. These are all considered very positive acts. They produce a positive energy, and that's what the merit is.

positive acts. They produce a positive energy, and that's what the merit is. And we don't cultivate merit or meritorious acts so that we go home and lie on the couch and feel good about ourselves. We generate that merit so we can, in turn, offer that, share it, dedicate it to the well-being of others. And so very classically, you would do that to those who've helped you. being of others. And so very classically, you would do that to those who've helped you. We practice sharing merit toward those who are struggling in some way, and finally toward all beings. So it just takes a couple of minutes, and you can do it in your own way, okay? So let's sit together, which in itself is an act of generosity. You can have your eyes open or closed, however you feel most at ease. You can start, if you like, by listening to sound,

allowing the sound of my voice or other sounds to just come and go. Let them wash through you. And when you see that impulse to hold on, to grab onto something, to grasp, relax. Just let it go. Thank you. And you let your attention rest on the feeling of your breath, the actual sensations of your breath. it's strongest or clearest for you at the nostrils, at the chest, or at the abdomen

and sometimes here too we want to grab, we want to clutch we want to cling to the sensations thinking that will help us concentrate and relax the operative word is rest I want to cling to the sensations, thinking that will help us concentrate. Relax. The operative word is rest. Don't worry about keeping your attention from wandering.

We'll work with bringing it back. That's the whole point. Maybe you'll get lost in thought or spun out in a fantasy, or you'll fall asleep. So when we emerge from that, the biggest transformation can take place. You realize you've been gone, gently let go. Bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.. Thank you. Takk for ating med. Gå ut.. And I'll share the merit in my own words. If you like, you can follow along silently with whatever words make sense to you. And it begins actually with feeling

and allowing yourself to feel that positive energy. It's not the same as conceit or pride or arrogance. It's really like taking delight in goodness. We have many choices about where to spend Wednesday afternoon, as all times, and it's pretty great to choose something like this. So in the joy of that possibility, we let that energy fill us. And then we dedicate it, we offer it. I offer the merit of my practice to those who died. I offer the merit of my practice to those who are struggling. It's an affirmation that my inner work

could never be just for myself alone. I offer the merit of my practice to all beings everywhere. So thank 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 Rubin Museum members, just one of the many benefits of membership. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.