Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 5/16/2018 with Rebecca Li

Episode Date: May 16, 2018

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. This program is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation with thanks to our presenting partners Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. Rebecca Li led this meditation session on May 16, 2018. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: http://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/rebecca-li-05-16-2018

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. The series is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation.

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. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Rubin Museum and to our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. My name is Dawn Eshelman. Great to have you all here. Great to have Rebecca Lee back as our teacher today.

We've been talking this month about discovering and how we see that represented in the art in our collection and upstairs in the galleries and also how we can use it as a lens to look at our meditation practice. And so today we, along with Rebecca, have selected this beautiful, rather elegant sculpture to look at together. This is from Mongolia, late 18th, early 19th century. And this is Maitreya. Maitreya is the Buddha of the future. And it is said that he will come to earth once teachings of the Buddha have been forgotten completely. So if you've been here for a little while, you have heard me talk about Padmasambhava, who's known as the second Buddha, who brought Buddhism to Tibet and who is known for being able to kind of project teachings into the future.

Well, he's not the only one with that skill. Maitreya here is in fact waiting, waiting until the teachings have been forgotten so that he can come to earth and bring them back. And let's take a look at this. Again, so elegant, this posture and this kind of slight tilt of the hips there. We see Maitreya's right hand is in the gesture of the mudra of teaching or wisdom or knowledge. And then in his left hand, there's actually a vial of water, and that represents purity and also the accumulation of good karma. And then on the very top, it looks like he might have a crown there, but in fact, it is a stupa. And the stupa represents the Buddha. So kind of hearkening back to the Buddha

and to those teachings when we may need to rediscover them. And of course, we've been talking about that theme of discovering and rediscovering here in many ways as we think about our practice. discoveries that we make along this trajectory of being meditators and what that teaches us about ourselves, about the world around us. And then there's also just that moment-to-moment rediscovery or discovery of the present moment. So our mind wanders, we recognize it, and we bring it back and rediscover the present moment. So our teacher today, Rebecca Lee, will talk to us a little bit more about that

and how we can use that in our practice. Dr. Rebecca Lee is a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and started practicing meditation in 1995. She began her teacher's training with Master Sheng Yen in 1999 to become a Dharma and meditation instructor. And later on, she trained with Simon Child. And she currently teaches meditation and Dharma classes and give lectures and retreats in North America and the UK. She's the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community and a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey, where she also serves as faculty director

of the Alan Daly Center for the Study of Social Justice. And her talks and writings can be found online at rebeccalee.org. Please welcome her back. It's lovely to be back with everyone, and thank you, Don. When I saw that we will be having Maitreya today, the future Buddha, who will be here to make sure that we don't lose the Dharma, because the future Buddha comes back to help us rediscover the Dharma that will be lost lose the Dharma, because the future Buddha comes back

to help us rediscover the Dharma that will be lost in the future. And, well, we don't need to think about that far into the future, and think about the method, the practice we've got. With the practice with us, yeah, sometimes we may forget altogether about being back in the present moment,

but we can always find it again. It's right here with us, right here, as long as we can remember to come back to the body, to the present moment. And that is very precious, and so we're very grateful that we have the reminder like Buddha Maitreya to remind us that we will not lose the Dharma.

And I really like the way Don talked about rediscovering the present moment. Why is it so important to be able to find a wayiscovering the present moment. Why is it so important to be able to find a way back to the present moment? Well, all we need to do is to remind ourselves how it feels like when we forget, when we forget to be back in the present moment. When we're back in, when we forget,

when then our usual habits completely take over. And so when we come back to the present moment, what we can also discover or rediscover is our inner strength, our inner strength to be free from our habits, especially habits that are particularly destructive, like fear that can take over completely. Fear about what's going to happen in the future. Have we been in those moments where we are so afraid, completely overwhelmed by anxiety about what is gonna happen,

what is going to happen to us in this world, or personally in our life, we all have this future that we feel uncertain, maybe because of the economy, will I be able to keep my job? How are my children going to turn out? Will they be able to get into the school that I want them to get into?

Or the fear of losing, losing the life we know, fear of losing maybe our loved one, losing our health, maybe losing our independence. A lot of fear and anxiety. And then that can completely take over. Now, of course, we don't know if any of these things will happen or when they will happen. We don't know if any of these things will happen or when they will happen. And maybe some of that is quite inevitable, like death, for example. All of us have that in the future, but we don't know when that's going to happen. What are we going to do in the present moment, knowing that? Knowing that that is uncertain, are we going to let the fear and the anxiety overwhelm us?

So much so that there's no way for us to feel free or enjoy our life. And this reminds me of this story. I have, it's a few, a number of years ago now, I have a nephew. He was around three years old. He was going through that phase that he liked to be furry, meaning that when we went to the grocery store, he liked to just run away from us. And so we were in this grocery store. We were actually shopping for ice cream.

And we got ice cream in our shopping cart, and we turned around. He disappeared. And he went outside the grocery store. I saw him running around right outside the store, actually on the road right outside the store. So I went outside and grabbed him bag, and I was with his mom. So I went outside and grabbed him bag, and I was with his mom. And, of course, his mom was furious and told him that, well, I told you, you can't do this.

And he was looking at getting some punishment when we got home. And all the way when we walked home from the grocery store, he already knew. He already knew he was going to get punished. But the entire time walking back, he was like crying, begging his mom, being afraid, being so worried about what is going to come. And so, the entire way walking home, he suffered and suffered and suffered. And he went home. suffer and suffer. And he went home. He got punished by my brother for three minutes. We walked home for 15 minutes.

And the entire time we were walking home, of course he completely forgot we've got ice cream waiting for us right in our shopping bag. We woke up, we've got ice cream waiting for us, right in our shopping bag, and there is this auntie who is here. We could have a pleasant, happy walk home from the store,

while my brother was waiting for him to give him his punishment. Just three minutes. And we thought this was very funny, and I really remember the story, because isn't that what we do? He was three years old, but we don't learn from that very well, right?

We spend our whole life worrying about or being in fear, being consumed by fear about what might come. And meanwhile, we completely, completely forget about everything that is available in the present moment for us to enjoy. Everything, everything. And do we remember to open our heart to embrace everything that's right here, right now, that brings us joy and happiness as well. Life is not all about happiness or sadness. It's everything together.

But we can learn to examine how we have this tendency to only focus on certain parts of our life, or certain aspects of it. Because when we do, then we are blocking ourselves from accessing everything else. So when we, yeah, it's sensible to know that there's something that might be coming, I better prepare for it.

So, for example, my in-laws, they are making preparation about their finances as they're getting older. It makes sense. So we're not pretending that's not going to happen. But is that going to take over our life? Every day we hear being anxious, being overwhelmed by that fear. Or we are very upset about what's happening maybe to our environment or to the world. Yeah, that is happening. That is happening. What it is that we can do, maybe we can support some organizing, we can participate,

do what it is that we can do, raise some awareness, but are we going to let that completely take over our lives so that we cannot have space for anything else? Because even though that might be important, that is not everything. That's not everything. And so the practice allows us to come back to the present moment. And when we allow ourselves to open our heart to embrace everything, to see everything that comes up in the present moment,

that's available in the present moment, we might be able to discover or rediscover the goodness in everything around us. Maybe goodness in ourselves we have taken for granted, especially if we are in the habit of nitpicking ourselves. This is not good enough, this is not good enough, that's not good enough. If we're in the habit of doing that,

we might have blocked ourselves from seeing all the wonderful things that we have been doing. And we may be able to discover or rediscover the goodness in everyone around us that we have taken for granted, especially those closest to us, the kind things that they've been doing for us, the generosity that we have been taking for granted,

we can rediscover that, and then allow ourselves to actually appreciate and enjoy it, instead of being such a grump. And also we can rediscover the beauty and goodness in ordinary daily life right around us. We might find that if we switch off the television or not look at our phone for some time, there are actually all kinds of wonderful things happening right around us.

Have we allowed ourselves to do that? It might be difficult because we fall into our usual habit. And so the practice of remembering to come back to the present moment, to where we are right here, right now, is so important and so precious. And it's also accessible. Every single one of us can do it, regardless of our station in life,

our age, our health, it doesn't matter. We all can do that right here, right now. And when we can do that, maybe we discover also how we really feel about a certain situation. We might discover that we have been blocking ourselves from certain aspects of our feeling. And they may allow us to change our perspective about a certain situation completely, and experience the way we experience our life altogether. Try it. So, let's allow ourselves a few minutes to try the meditation that allows us to access this inner strength, our ability to transform our own life, right here, right now.

So we sit, make sure we sit in a comfortable posture that allows our upper body to be erect and relaxed. Check to see if we are tensing up any part of our body, shoulders. We go through the whole body relaxation, starting from the top of the head. Feel the relaxation of the top of the head like melting butter. And feel the relaxation spread to the forehead. and feel the relaxation spread to the forehead. Check to see if we're holding tension

in this area by habit. Maybe from worries, fear. We can allow that muscle to take a rest, and allow the tension to melt away. Feel the relaxation spread to the eyeballs and eye muscles, allowing the tension to melt away.

Feel the relaxation spread to the facial muscles. Check to see if we are holding tension by habit, maybe around our ears, in the jaw, and allow the tension to melt away. Feel the relaxation spread to the neck muscles. Head to the neck muscles. Check to see if we are holding tension in these muscles by habit. And feel the relaxation of these muscles spreading like melting butter. I feel the relaxation spread to the shoulder muscles.

We hold a lot of tension in these muscles by habit, we can allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down the arms, directly experiencing Feel the relaxation spread down the arms. Directly experiencing the muscles in the arms relaxing. And feel the relaxation spread down to the forearms and all the way down to the fingertips. And feel the relaxation spread to the chest area. Check to see if we're holding tension in the chest area by habit,

maybe from anxiety or sadness or stress. or stress. And we can give these emotions a rest right here, right now. And allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down the torso to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the upper back. Feel the tension in the muscles between the shoulder blades softening, like melting butter, as we allow the tension to melt away. all the way. And feel the relaxation

spread down the back to the lower back and all the way down to our buttocks where we can feel the sensations of our body sitting on the chair. And feel the relaxation spread down the legs. And all the way down to the toes. And feel the relaxation of the entire body sitting on the chair to anchor us

to the present moment. We can sit right here, right now, with this body and mind in this present moment, moment after moment, and allow ourselves to fully experience Experience what's happening right now. If we notice memories or thoughts or images or feelings arising, no problem. That's part of the present moment. If we allowed it, we'll notice they will go away on their own. We don't need to do anything about it.

We don't need to chase it away. We notice that these thoughts, these emotions, are just that. They don't have to control us. They don't have to completely take over our lives. Because if we allow ourselves to fully embrace the totality of the present moment,

we will also notice the subtle movements of the body from the body breathing that this body is breathing, that we are alive. How wonderful is that? And when was the last time we remembered to appreciate it instead of taking this breath for granted?

For granted. And we can continue to allow ourselves to open our heart to everything that the unfolding present moment has to offer us, right here, right now. Thank you. Takk for watching! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.. And we want to remember to maintain the stability of mind as we transition from stillness to motion. Thank you for coming. I hope to see you next time. Thank you. 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.