Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 1/6/16 with Tracy Cochran

Episode Date: January 7, 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 New York Insight Meditation Center. This week’s session will be led by Tracy Cochran. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: http://rma.cm/pc

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 Salzberg 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. Tracy Cochran is the editorial director of Parabola Magazine, which is a magazine that's been around for 40 years and explores the world's wisdom traditions. She has been a student and a teacher of meditation and spiritual practices for some decades, teaching mindfulness meditation and also mindful writing at the New York Insight Meditation Center. And her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times and many others. Please give a warm welcome, Tracy Cochran. Well, I'm delighted to return. And I also feel like something new is going to start. And researching a little bit about this festival,

it's really quite like New Year's. And they party like crazy, having this kind of big paintball party, throwing colors on each other. And then they clean up and they sober up. It's like New Year's Day. And they go and visit their family and their friends and they make, they let go of old debts or they pay debts and they have a spirit of renewal. And what intrigued me about this,

especially connected as I am to Pravla, is that Pravla did an issue on renewal and repetition that all throughout India and every culture in the world, there are these rituals that harken back to mythic stories, as this one does, that have to do with falling back, falling back and recreating? And I love the way I was sitting here as you came in, just watching how he's just letting go with complete abandon, and wondering how can we connect with this in ourselves and by accident or by a fortunate coincidence I heard a wonderful story

from a friend of mine who grew up in India and came here and went to college and became thoroughly Western and she had a grandfather and she always asked him how old are you grandpa and he said I was born during the harvest and she'd press and say but what year grandpa and he'd say before my sister and after my brother and she knew, except that he was somewhere between 78 and 90. And because he lived totally with a sense of the seasons, with these cycles. And I realized on the spot that going forward, one of my New Year's resolutions is to be ageless.

Doesn't that feel great? That usually we have this punishing sense of a linear progression with a finish line or deadlines. But this whole notion of falling back gives us a possibility possibility of starting again, of connecting with something new. And I realized, thinking of how we can relate together, I mean, we're doing it. We're falling back on a very ancient practice to find something new, an experience of the present moment. And I realized it's as close as the breath. When we pull ourselves out of our thoughts, and usually our thoughts are that punishing,

leaning forward, aren't they? Things we have to get done. Even our resolution sometimes can be a way to kind of punish ourselves. But another way to understand resolution and renewal is this notion of stepping back or even falling back on the breath, on the experience of being in a body, of taking time. And in ancient festivals like this, and in all the ancient myths, there was this intuition that we also have,

that we can penetrate to something timeless, something a little bit more still, something more in accord with nature, including our own private natures, right? That we can return. And isn't it so interesting that this feeling of return, and remember the word for mindfulness in Pali, the ancient dialect of the Buddha, sati, like this guy.

And I like, I really like him because he reinforces my idea that this is the way I'm going to be from now on, ageless, ageless. And honoring those times when I let go of last year or let go of my old grievances or burdens and give myself permission to open up and begin again. I'm going to remember him. I might forego the paintball part of the party. and begin again. I'm going to remember him. I might forego the paintball part of the party,

but inwardly, we can do this. So I think it would be nice to practice, and then we're going to practice. We'll start now by taking a comfortable seat and we're going to sit together with some instruction from me and afterwards we can have a little bit of an exchange about these ideas of falling back and renewal. So we're going to sit with our feet firmly on the floor, taking our place, taking up all the space we feel to take up. In this moment, we're going to let go of linear time and drop into nature as it presents itself in the body. Our nature.

This body and this breath. body and this breath. And we're not going to force it to do anything, we're just going to allow it to land here. Here we are. Noticing how it begins to open as you bring kind attention to it, a spirit of allowing it to be. And as the body feels ready, bring the attention to rest on the breathing. Without seeking to change it, just noticing the in-breath and the out-breath. Allowing ourselves to know that we're returning to a rhythm that is as old as life, the rhythm of breath. Allowing ourselves to be breathed rather than forcing. As the breath leaves the body, new life coming in. Allowing other sensations and thoughts to arise and pass away, knowing that no feeling is final. Thank you for watching. If we find ourselves taken by thinking or dreaming, we simply notice that with kind attention and no judgment, and gently bring the attention home to the breath and the sensation of being in a body, breathing. I'm going to take a picture of the Thank you for watching! I'm going to show you the inside of the house.

The house is a little bit small, but it's a nice place to live. The house is a little bit small, but it's a nice place to live. The house is a little bit small, but it's a nice place to live. The house is a little bit small, but the breath that we open to life, to fresh impressions, oxygen influences. Rengar Thank you for watching. I'm going to show you the inside of the house. The house is a little bit small. The house is a little bit small. The house is a little bit small. The house is a little bit small. Rengar The Thank you for watching! And when you're taken, you simply return and renew the effort without commentary or judgment on what has been.

Just this moment. Just now. 1.5 kg of pork belly Thank you for watching. I'm going to show you the inside of the house. This is the first floor. This is the second floor. This is the third floor. This is the fourth floor. The Rengar Noticing how the body softens, how the attention seems to quicken and brighten. but simply a light of awareness, a receptivity. Gullu Thank you for watching! I'm going to take a picture of the I'm going to make a Even if you've been taking this whole time, coming back now to the breathing without judgment or comment. At moments, as we allow ourselves to soften and open, we may notice that we're part of an awareness that really is ageless, selfless. The The The Thank you for watching! 1.5 kg of meat The So I'm eager for your questions, but before I wanted to offer, after we sat, a couple of more reflections.

Like, first of all, I don't know about you, I hope it's true for you. It's always extraordinary to go back, isn't it, to the breath and to find this new life. And in the Buddha Dharma they talk about rebirth as opposed to reincarnation, but they don't just mean at the end of this body, they mean moment by moment by moment. And as a thought experiment, think about how great it would be if we didn't have birthdays.

Think about it. And that if instead you were thinking in terms of, oh, this is a time to get ready to plant. This is a time of opening and planting seeds. Or this is a time of drawing in, contracting, being more quiet and still. If you lived your life that way. Years ago, in my long life as a writer and editor,

I remember talking with Robert Thurman, the Buddhist scholar, Tibetan Buddhism. And he was trying to impress on me how relaxing it is to think of rebirth. Because it doesn't mean you have to get everything done in this life. It really takes the heat off. And even if you have no interest whatsoever in believing such a thing or exploring such a thing, what would it be like to live with this idea of return? Because it's quite true. Throughout time, when people have had a desire

for something new, they've stepped back. Even the Buddha, he left home. He went in search of an ancient road, and then he found something new. And it always comes down, the last thing I'll say before I invite your interesting comments,

to the simplest repetitions that can support us. Coming back to the breath, this practice, it's a double movement. You come back to the breath, it quiets you down, settles you down, returns you to the sensation of your own body. And at the same time, you allow your mindful, soft, instead of heaping more judgments on yourself. Those simple movements like the in-breath and the out-breath. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

And this is where we find something new. Over this great holiday, I saw for the first time the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. I'd never been. And my 25-year-old daughter and her husband took me to

the ballet. And in this issue of parabola that I spoke of on repetition and renewal, there was an interview with Lincoln Kirstein, who founded the New York City Ballet. And he was a great spiritual seeker. And he made the point that these dancers repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And once in a great while, there's an extraordinary young dancer who's open in a different way. So they bring to these movements something so fresh in the moment.

For me, just seeing these ballerinas go up on point, for the first time I felt like a little girl, like something taking flight. But this is what we do when we sit. We do the simple, simple return, again and again. And at certain moments, sometimes just for a nanosecond, I know you felt it.

There's this burst of new life. So never give up. And when, oh, he's gone. One of these days, you'll feel like he does. This bliss, this freshness. To end, we put two hands together in front of our heart space.

And we dedicate our practice here together, our intention and our efforts to renew, to open to life. And we don't keep them for ourselves, but we give them away. to renew, to open to life. And we don't keep them for ourselves, but we give them away. We dedicate them to all beings everywhere without exception. May all beings everywhere feel safe.

May all beings find refuge and feel accepted and acceptable. May all beings be happy and at home in their lives. And may all beings find their way to renewal, to life and liberation. Thank you. Thank you very much. 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.