Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 12/9/2015 with Jon Aaron

Episode Date: December 11, 2015

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 New York Insight Meditation Center. This week’s session will be led by Jon Aaron. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: http://rma.cm/lh

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 to learn more we are proud to be partnering with sharon salzburg and the 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. So welcome everyone.

It's nice to see you again. Yeah, so as Don was saying, we're going to be talking a bit about fearlessness today and what that actually is. And Tara is the perfect bodhisattva to have up there as part of that. And you can sort of see that the way she's positioned here, she has kind of one foot in the world and one foot in a meditation posture, so that she's using both essentially to balance herself and to be present with whatever is happening.

So this idea of her being a protector of the great terrors, which as Dawn said are lions, but also elephants, fire, snakes, robbers, captivity, shipwreck, and demons. These are the eight terrorists of that period anyway. But really, more symbolically, protectors against delusion, confusion, anger, envy, greed, attachment. And this is where mindfulness really starts to come into play here because as we practice meditation, we really start to see how these obstacles get in our way. And the notion that Tara is the protectress for those obstacles.

And this mudra that she has, the one hand gesture of this, is not only one of, it's not the gesture to stop, actually. It's a gesture of compassion. And there's a very famous tale of the Buddha, as the Buddha was late in his career, his cousin was rather jealous and was trying to take over the Buddha's sangha,

and he was trying to get rid of the Buddha. And the Buddha was walking through town on his alms rounds, and the cousin let loose a drunken elephant to go run after and trample the Buddha. And so the drunken elephant goes down the street where the Buddha is walking.

And the Buddha basically does that gesture. The elephant stops, kneels down, and puts his head against the Buddha's head. So it was this gesture, this courageous and compassionate gesture of fearlessness. So what we're talking about with fearlessness is not the idea that we don't feel fear, but

it's the practice of recognizing the fear and not being afraid of this fear. You know, being able to see our way through the fear that we experience. So the fear is felt, but fearlessness gives us the courage to see beyond it. And we can get into all sorts of linguistic discussions here, which isn't really the point, but there's this idea of the difference between bravery and courage, right? So bravery is actually just not feeling any fear

and just going against whatever is in front of you. It's not actually about what's beyond that. It's about the thing in front of you. Whereas courage is actually a much... There is fear that's felt, but we see beyond that fear and actually are acting from a very different place altogether. So we're acting from a place of compassion. We're acting from a place of equanimity.

So in practice, particularly in mindfulness practice, it's learning to be comfortable with the uncertainty of life. And I would say not only to be comfortable with it, but to enjoy the uncertainty of life, to look forward to the uncertainty of life, because we just don't know. We can make all the plans we want for our future, but we really don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, or let alone the next hour. So we're really being present with what's happening now and being open to whatever happens next, which doesn't mean you don't have plans.

It doesn't mean you don't try to change things that they're bad. But it means you're open to the outcome, whatever that is. We can be open to outcome, but not attached to outcome. So we can be open to outcome but not attached to outcome. So meditation itself takes a lot of courage. Because what we're doing, particularly in mindfulness meditation, is turning toward all of our difficulties. Whatever arises, we're turning toward it.

We're not turning away from it. And that's challenging. And that's challenging. So whether it's emotional pain or physical pain or just a difficult situation, a difficult thought that arises, we turn toward it, we explore it, we learn to soften around it through our meditation practice. So really what's happening in our practice is that we're, we experience the fear arising, we experience the resistance to that fear, and then we learn to soften around that resistance.

So the practice I'll be guiding us in today will be taken from a practice that Steven Levine has written and recorded, actually. I'm not going to be doing that practice in particular specifically, but it's sort of taken out of that. It's called the soft belly meditation. And it comes from Stephen Levine's book, A Year to Live. You know, with the notion that our biggest, for many people, their biggest fear is the fear of death, of course,

although statistically speaking, the biggest fear for most people is public speaking. So go figure. How do you get over the fear of public speaking? You soften around it. So I'm going to guide us in this practice, and I'll end with a poem which really addresses it as well. And then we'll talk about it a bit afterwards.

So finding a comfortable posture. A firm back, a soft front, for this act of kindness toward yourself and recognizing that as you bring kindness to yourself that kindness expands outward as well as inward Just notice if you're at this moment breaths, breathing into the abdomen, into the belly, and out of the belly, and really allowing the belly to soften. So awareness knows the body sitting. Awareness knows the body breathing. Awareness knows the beginning, the middle, and the end of the out-breath, in-breath, and the beginning and the middle and the end of the out breath, in breath, and the beginning and the middle and the end of the out breath. And just allowing this breath to be felt fully in the soft belly. Just being aware of the constantly flowing change of sensations. Thank you. Allowing the soft belly to receive each breath and receive each sensation. Thank you. Notice any resistance that arises. Takk for ating mediet. And with a firm back, allowing the muscles to relax, the tissues to relax. Thank you. And just exploring the body.

Is there any hardness felt? Is there any tension felt? Is there any hardness felt? Is there any tension felt? Is there any holding felt? Can you turn toward that and allow the breath and the soft belly to soften it. Thank you. If difficult emotions are present, anger or grief, jealousy, allow those to float easily in the soft belly. Thank you. Thank you. Takk for ating med. Thank you. Takk for ating mediet. Thank you. Takk for ating med. Gå in. Thank you. Takk for ating med. Takk for watching! Thank you. Vindelstegn. Just be aware of any holding, holding in the holding, soften the holding. Thank you. Takk for ating mediet. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. This is a poem by Donna Falls. There's no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.

Resist and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in, the wild and the weak, fear, fantasies, failures, and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth. in the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. Takk for watching!... 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.