Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 1/27/16 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: February 11, 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 Dharma and the Three Jewels. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: http://rma.cm/pw

Thank you. If you would like to join us in person, please visit our website at woganmuseum.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. So the stupa is a wonderful symbol. I was telling Dawn I'd be curious to hear what you all see, what you sense, what you feel when you look at that image. And I said, for me, I look at that image and I sense stability and some kind of steadiness. And not a rigid, enclosed steadiness, but something that can endure, something that has a certain nature. It has its own nature, whatever might get thrown on it or whoever might visit or whatever it is.

It just has its own beingness. So I actually feel all of that when I look at an actual stupa or an image of a stupa, which brings me to the concept of the dharma. The word dharma, dharma in Pali, Pali doesn't seem to have its Rs. They were left with Sanskrit. So dharma in Sanskrit is the word that's often used for the Buddha's teaching. It more fundamentally means that the nature, the truth of things, the way.

And even more fundamentally than that, it means that which sustains us, that which upholds us, right? So it's that sense of kind of dignity and presence and balance and stability. No matter what life is showing us, whatever's happening internally or externally, there can be that kind of presence. So one of the most famous things of course about the Dharma, which I probably touched on a little bit last week, is this idea of the middle way. Somebody on Twitter just recently sent a tweet asking either me or Jack Kornfield or there were a few other people to please answer and he said something like can't you sort of

be a hedonist and also a Buddhist and the subtext of course it's only 140 characters but the vibe I got was like please couldn't it be that I could have kind of a wild

pursuit of pleasure and still consider myself a Buddhist? So Jack answered before I had a chance to answer and he basically, of course, everything depends on how one defines terms. So, you know, it's not, it's not easy ever without a whole conversation about how one is using a certain word but Jack basically said you know if hedonism is grasping and clinging after pleasure then no you know because Buddhism is about the middle way right and so that of course is evoked in the life of the Buddha's we talked about last week where he spent and you know in the life of the Buddha, as we talked about last week, where he spent, you know,

in the legend surrounding the Buddha, he spent the first 29 years of his life just in that kind of pursuit of pleasure, which his life allowed. He had that kind of princely existence, plus the commitment of his father to not have him see any pain or suffering because his father knew that would be like the wake-up call

to look more deeply into life. So he spent all that time just pursuing pleasure, basically being a hedonist, and then six years after seeing a corpse and an older person, in a sick person, and those things that sort of woke him up, he spent six years in self-mortification. And then he realized that wasn't the way either. And so that became the beginning of the middle way, which is the essence of the Dharma. So we hear something like the middle way.

And I think we tend to think of, well, I'll take a little of this extreme and a little of that extreme, and I'll morph them together, and I'll have the middle. But it's almost like transcendence. It's not getting lost in either extreme view or way of being. So there's a lot about balance in the middle way a different kind of balance not for example being motivated by self-hatred uh in one's practice feeling that um you know somehow we've got to get some great experience so that Somehow we've got to get some great experience so that we can hold it or keep it and feel better about ourselves. That's not productive. That's really not the middle way.

It's much more effective to come from a very different place. like a place of self-compassion, a place of recognizing that our own potential is considered the universal potential for growth, for understanding, for love, and so on. So we cultivate a different motivational base. that balance to think of one's spiritual life or one's meditative life as kind of contained in these little increments. Like, I'm going to spend ten minutes a day deeply seeking the truth. And tell lies all week at work, doesn't matter. You know, because it does matter. The idea of balance is that everything, that our

life, our deepest commitment, our deepest values, our spiritual life, in other words, is, our life is all of one piece. And what we do at work will affect our experience when we're formally meditating,

when we're having that internal experience, what we do when we're formally meditating, when we're having that internal experience, what we do when we're meditating, will affect how we speak to a colleague who's really kind of nasty. You know, that our lives are really all in one piece. And so part of the descriptions of the Dharma, which also came to my mind when I was looking at the stupa, were ways in which it's all-encompassing.

Teachings about morality or ethics, not in a punitive, kind of self-righteous sense, but really out of enormous love and compassion for oneself, seeking a different kind of balance. And in some ways, it's described almost like common sense. You know, if you do tell lies all week at work, and you sit down, let's say you say, okay, it's Saturday, I'm going to meditate for four hours. And you sit down to meditate, and all you can pretty well think is, did I lie enough?

Did I lie to all the people I needed to lie to? Maybe there's someone else I need to lie to. You know, what should that lie look like? Should I lie to somebody and get them to lie to someone else to reinforce my original lie? What was my original lie anyway? And so it's just not the... It's not impossible to concentrate in that kind of internal environment, but we have now set ourselves up for the hardest thing possible, which is to try to get some stability and clarity in the midst of that kind of mess, right? So again, it's not like

condemning yourself or feeling like you're a bad person, but it's almost like the science of it. If our lives are that complicated and that sort of messy, it's just harder to sit down and deepen tranquility and and the kind of peace that really helps concentration and if we can develop more concentration uh that sort of steadiness of attention we can develop more insight because we can take that that mode of concentration that means presence and kind of unfiltered awareness we're not so distracted we can take that to many realms of our experience we can look at our emotional life we can look at our thought patterns we can look at our physical sensations we can look at our external experience we can look at our physical sensations. We can look at our external experience. We can look at our relationships.

And that's the foundation of having insight, of having understanding. So it's kind of a natural progression. And it's also circular. It's like if we start just trying to clean up our lives a little bit, that helps us in developing more concentration. We develop more concentration, we can develop more insight. The more insight we have, the more our lives change just automatically. I don't know if, for example, you've ever been on the verge of something like

you're talking to somebody and this really nasty piece of gossip about someone else comes up in your mind. It's true, but really nasty. And you can just feel that urge to disclose it. And it's almost this weird sort of sense of power, like I know something you don't know. And I'm about to show you that. I know something you don't know, and I'm about to show you that. And then you realize lots of suffering lies down that path. Not I'm a bad person and not I'm awful, but what good would actually come from this person

thinking so badly about that other person? And would I feel comfortable saying it if that other person was actually in the room? Right? And so you might feel that urge, but your insight, maybe bad experience insight, but some kind of insight comes up and says, I don't need to go there.

Or you have an impulse toward generosity. And it's strong and it's good. It's not like crazy, you know. Like, I'm going to give away my rent-controlled apartment. It's good, you know. And so you have this impulse toward generosity

and then you get afraid. Oh no, you know, I've carried that book through four sublets so far and it's sitting on a pile. It's not even on the top of the pile of all these books I have not yet read. But what if I do read it? What if it changes my life totally? What if it's the missing ingredient for my next book? I can't give it up, right? So we have the impulse to give, and then we have the fear. But with insight,

we realize that fear is just a habit. It is so unlikely. I mean, it's more likely that I'll carry that book through eight more sublets than it is that I'll ever read it. And so that allows us to let go and enjoy the actual act of giving,

which will bring us a lot of joy. So the more insight we have, the more our lives change, the more our lives change, we have a greater ability to really steady our attention and then we can use that steadier attention to look more deeply into our experience and it just kind of goes round and round so that actually is

the Dharma it's every element of our lives being brought being reinforced with these these strengths of clear seeing and compassion for ourselves and and others and real change in how we live. Okay, so let's sit together. They say balance appears right away in our posture. You want to have some energy in your body. See if your back can be straight, but not like so much energy. You're really stiff.

And close your eyes or not. You can start by listening to sound. And just let the sound wash through you. And bring your attention to the feeling of your body sitting, whatever sensations you discover. And bring your attention to the feeling of your breath. Just the normal, natural breath. Wherever you feel it most distinctly. The nostrils, the chest, or the abdomen. You can find that place.

Bring your attention there and just rest. See if you can feel one breath. Without being concerned about what's already gone by. Without leaning forward for even the very next breath. Just this one. 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 resting in the sensations of the breath. One breath at a time. Thank you. And if images or sounds or sensations or emotions should arise, but they're not all that 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. Diolch yn fawr.... if something comes up and it's quite strong, thought, image, emotion, whatever it might be,

spend a few moments just acknowledging this is what's happening right now. Without judgment, without holding on or pushing away. Just recognize this is what's happening right now. And see if you can let go. Bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. And for all those, perhaps many times,

you're just gone. And you sort of emerge from a whole long fantasy or you've fallen asleep. Really don't worry about it. One of the pivotal parts of the whole process is remembering just let go gently. It doesn't matter. Because you can always, always begin again. So we let go, shepherd our attention back to the feeling of the breath. Thank you. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you. Diolch. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr. 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, 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.