Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 3/9/2016 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: March 23, 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 is be led by Sharon Salzberg focusing on the theme of the Non-attachment. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: http://rma.cm/oi

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 teacheruseum.org. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the Teachers from the Interdependence Project. In the description for each episode, you will find information about the theme for that week's session, including an image of a related art room chosen from the Rubin 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 in Pali, the language of the original Buddhist texts, they would talk about a kind of desire that's really just intentionality. And they have a word for that, chanda. So it's aspiration, it's intention, it can be strong motivation. And that isn't necessarily a problem. That isn't necessarily something that's going to lead to suffering. Because that state is basically considered morally neutral.

And it really takes the flavor of what is accompanying it. We can have a strong intention with huge energy and a really big vision, big aspiration that's based on love, on connection, on wisdom. We can have one that's based on love, on connection, on wisdom. We can have one that's based on revenge or fear, right? And a kind of misconstrued self-protection. So the intentionality is not going to really depict the moral valence or the ethical implications

or the degree of suffering or freedom from suffering it might bring us. And so it's not considered a bad thing. And this is confusing for us because there's so much about non-attachment, non-desire. And we take that to mean no intentionality. Like you're basically not going to get out of bed. You know, if you really get good at meditation, that's it. You know, you're never going to get anything done. People ask this all the time. Aren't I going to lose my edge? Aren't I going to lose ambition? Well, it depends

on where that ambition is coming from. Some of it you might want to lose, right? If it's driving you crazy. But it doesn't mean that you're just inert, and you're never going to do anything. Another word in Pali or Sanskrit that we also translate as desire has much more of that sense of clinging or craving. And that in itself is the kind of state when we're lost in it, not when it just arises, but when we're really lost in it, that brings us a lot of suffering. do have in a kind of fixation on what we don't have and thinking, I must have that thing, that experience,

that person, whatever it is. It's the only way I will ever be happy. And because we are overlooking what we already do have, we don't have a lot of gratitude. We don't have a lot of appreciation. We're just fixated. And we feel so bereft because we're just thinking about what we don't have.

And the other meaning of that word in Pali, it would be, which is like thirst or clinging, is really trying to hold on to what we do have, refusing to admit the truth of change. So that's like me walking out of my apartment this morning saying, great. I'm going to pack away my boots. I'm going to pack away my boots. I'm going to pack away my winter clothes.

Maybe yes, but maybe no. So when we hold on in that way, it is a pretty sure path to suffering. Because again, we're maybe missing the enjoyment, just the sheer enjoyment and abiding in and pleasure in what's happening in this kind of fearful insistence on making it stay, not letting it change, not letting it breathe and be natural. So I think sometimes of when I first was living in India practicing meditation in the early 1970s, and there came a certain point where I decided I was going to live in India for the entire rest of my life, which you know how that turned out, but anyway, you already know the end of the story. And in those days, it was quite difficult to get an extensive visa. These days, I think it's much easier.

But then it was really quite hard. So as I would sit in meditation, I would plan, OK, next year when I need a new visa, I'll go over there because that's really close. And they'll be very sympathetic to all these Western people wanting to learn meditation. And the year after that, when I need a new visa, I'll go over there, because that's really remote, and no one goes over there. And they'll be so charmed that they'll give me a visa extension. And the year after that, when I need a new visa, I'll go over there, because I heard those people are corrupt

and I'll bribe them. And then the year after that, and I would sort of go through this travelogue of India, and then the bell would ring. It would be the end of the sitting. I'd get up, and I'd come back, and I'd do it all over again. Well, next year, when I need a new visa, I'll do this. I'll do that. I'll do that.

I'll do that. And there was so much grasping. And I finally, and this was a while later, I finally did two things that were really important to kind of break that. One was I asked myself, what are you feeling right now? Right? And instead of doing another tour of India,

I dropped down to the level of seeing the anxieties, seeing the longing, seeing actually the disbelief I could ever get what I wanted. And that's what I needed to be with directly in order to face the grasping. And the other thing I did, which is really exemplified by our path and in some way by this beautiful piece of art, is I said to myself, you're not even in India while you're in India. All you're doing is thinking about how to stay in India.

Why not be in India while you're in India? And that actually revolutionized my whole experience, which was a good thing. Because as life unfolded, my life unfolded, I definitely didn't stay in India for the rest of my life. It was a very different life than I thought it was going to be at the time. And I think it would just be almost tragic

to look back on those beautiful, precious moments and think, I spent the whole time planning about how to stay when I didn't even end up staying, instead of enjoying it. So there's so much beauty in that Bodhisattva depiction. It really reminds me, let's be here. Let's inhabit this moment. Life is so fragile. It's so fleeting.

And it's so out of our control. We don't actually know what we will be encountering next. So we can really enjoy and inhabit this moment completely. And it's a very beautiful state. It doesn't take away that first meaning of desire. It really doesn't leave us sort of in bad always. But it can ease the grip of the kind of clinging or grasping that we fall into just out of the force of habit,

and we experience a lot more happiness. So let's sit together. See if you can have your back be straight without being strained or overarched. Just relax. And you can close your eyes or not, however you feel most at ease. You can start by listening to sound, whether it's the sound of my voice or other sounds.

See if you can 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 your hands. This right here is a good stress reduction exercise. See if you can shift from the more conceptual level of perception, like, oh, hands, fingers, to the world of direct sensation, picking up pulsing, throbbing, pressure, whatever it might be. You don't have 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, at the nostrils, at the chest, at the abdomen. 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 see if the breath can come to you, that leaning forward, even to get ready for the next breath, is a kind of grasping. Settle back.

Settle back into your body. Let the breath come to you. When you find your attention has wandered, don't worry about it. Maybe you've gotten lost in thinking, past, future, whatever. Or you've fallen asleep. It's really okay. You can recognize you've been gone and see if you can without judgment gently let go. It's also a form of

non-grasping. You don't have to take that thought or that emotion and try to hurl it away. But it's like your hand is curled tightly around your fist and you just open. Let it go.

And come back to the feeling of the breath. Thank you.... early on in my practice I used to say to myself you're breathing anyway all you need to do is feel it because I had so much performance anxiety it's like I'd never done it before so settle back you're breathing anyway performance anxiety. It's like I'd never done it before. So settle back.

You're breathing anyway. All you need to do is feel it. You don't have to override this very breath to get ready for the next one. if something comes up that pulls you away or when something comes up that pulls you away see if you can just gently let go and return Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Be happy. Thank you. happy.

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.