Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 5/9/2018 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: May 10, 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. Sharon Salzberg led this meditation session on May 9, 2018. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: http://rubinmuseum.org/events/event/sharon-salzberg-05-09-2018 Image Credit: Chitra Ganesh (b. 1975, Brooklyn, NY); Rainbow Body; 2018; digital animation; courtesy of the artist

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. So nice to have you all here on this beautiful spring day. And this month is all about discovery.

We have been talking about Padmasambhava and the exhibition up on the sixth floor, The Second Buddha, Master of Time, and Padmasambhava's kind of wizardry-level skills in that he can plant teachings in the future for treasure revealers to discover. And we're talking about that moment of discovery and seeing what metaphors we can find in our meditation practice around that, our own discoveries, the quality of those discoveries, and how we interact with them when they happen. So the image that we're looking at today is a

different one for us. And this is by the artist Chitra Ganesh, Brooklyn-born contemporary artist. This is actually a still from an animation. And if you have roamed the galleries recently, you may have stumbled across some of these kind of what we're calling interventions. They are placed at certain areas in the gallery in relationship to traditional objects that have a place in the gallery as well. So you may stumble upon the Shakyamuni Buddha in this instance on the second floor, and then motion sensor will trigger this projection of this animation. Now this animation and all, they all relate in some way to Padmasambhava and the second Buddha exhibition and or to objects

that are within their physical vicinity. This one in particular, not the image we're looking at right now, but the narrative that this animation tells, is the story of Mandarava. And she was a consort of Padmasambhava's, who had a really interesting story. She broke away from traditional royal expectations and sought out a monastic life. And she subsequently, after much practice, did reach this point of enlightenment, which is told in the story. It shows Mandarava waking up and then being sucked through the bardo into rainbow realization, discovering the true nature of phenomena. Okay? So really what that means is that she became enlightened. And in the Dzogchen tradition, when someone dies, as they are becoming enlightened, they actually physically transform into a rainbow, a rainbow body. In that tradition,

the perception is that, in fact, all of reality is simply light that has been fractured. And so this is a kind of a culminating beautiful moment of that light. And in the narrative of this video, we see that happen. And then from that rainbow body emerges this image. So this is the discovery, if you will. And I think it's really fun and interesting. We see the Buddha, Shakyamuni, in the middle. And the face of the Buddha is kind of blacked out. Through that, you can see the background, which is a galaxy. And then, I don't know if you can tell, but there's a fracture through the center of the Buddha's body up there, which is also the universe kind of bursting through.

There's a ring of fire around that. And then on either side, we have these figures, not necessarily named or referenced figures in any way. They look kind of contemporary, right, from the sort of hairstyles. And they're holding these eclipse viewing glasses, remember that, not so long ago, and looking at this kind of a rainbow eclipse. So it's kind of this moment of just kind of rediscovering awe and really taking in exactly what is around you, the sense of wonder and appreciation for these kind of seemingly miraculous things that happen. So we are so delighted and happy to have Sharon Salzberg

back with us. She has traversed the globe a few times maybe, and it's great to have her back here in New York. And as many of you know, she's the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Berry, Massachusetts. She is a renowned teacher and author, and her latest book, Real Love, is available in our shop upstairs. Please welcome her back, Sharon Salzberg. Isn't that a great piece of art? It's so different. Makes me want to go right to the exhibit. So when I think of discovery, I see that my mind keeps going back to this one moment in time.

I think I talked about it here once when we talked about wonder. And that was when I went to India for the very first time. It was 1970. And, like, of course, the whole overarching theme was discovery. I mean, there I was going off to India. But like we all did in those days, I went overland from Europe through Turkey and Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally India. And the moment that comes to my mind is when I was standing in Istanbul on the banks of the Bosphorus River, which according to conventional geography divides Europe and Asia, somewhere in the middle of that river.

And so I was standing in Europe, so to speak, looking at Asia, just wondering, what will that be like? I have no reference point for this, really. I had one Asian philosophy class in college. I had no real in-depth knowledge or insight, but it was just this eagerness to come close to the experience and not to arrive with my own bias or projections or whatever. And just like, what is this? What will this be? So that was a beautiful moment, and clearly a long time ago. But, you know, there's also a great innocence in that moment, because there was no way I could have guessed that the sort of the teachings and the principles and the values and the whole way of life that I learned once in India and Asia would be the center of my life for the rest of my life. There was just no knowing on all of that openness.

So I think of that as just a beautiful, beautiful state. It's different than being convinced of something and holding on to that conviction so that you don't have a sense ever of learning anything new or seeing different perspectives. But it doesn't mean that you let go of all values or understandings. It doesn't mean being really stupid about things. There are just surprises all along the way, I think, when we are willing to pay attention. So as you would know, if you've been here before with me, I very often use the example of talking to a stranger.

And you're not really listening, and you're not really paying attention, and you're not really looking at them or taking them in, because you're thinking about the email you need to write, or who else you'd rather be talking to, so you're kind about the email you need to write or, you know, who else you'd rather be talking to as you're kind of looking around. And maybe you realize that and you do actually exactly what we do in meditation practice, which is you gather your attention and you really arrive. And then there's the possibility of so much discovery.

Maybe you find yourself in them in surprising ways, or maybe you hear aspects about their experience that kind of surprise you. I was recently in Louisville, Kentucky, very recently, and my friend and I were walking to the kind of conference center where I was going to give a talk, and we were stopped by a homeless person on the street. I assumed he was homeless, asking for money. And my friend gave him some money, and then he started talking to us about his recent sobriety

and one day at a time, you know, and it was actually quite a beautiful conversation. And I thought, well, that's a surprise for this morning. Who knew? Sometime before that, before I was in Kentucky, I was teaching a course, and there was a woman attending the course who had various very debilitating and really quite painful physical conditions. And she said that some time ago she'd been in the hospital,

just wanted to die because it was just too much. And she had the thought, you know, you can turn any ordinary day into an extraordinary day just by finding one new thing. So she resolved to find one new thing about each day. And since she was meeting many people for the first time at this particular retreat, she could spread it out. She allowed herself that. It wasn't like a grim thing. So let's say she met 30 new people at this retreat. That could cover 30 days. You know, she'd think of them one at a time. Or she said, maybe it's doing a new thing with an old friend. Or reading something new. Or what I really liked

was that it was fun. You know, she said, worse came to worse, and she couldn't find anything a new ice cream flavor would do. I thought, that is so cool. And she got out of bed, and she was still in her various modes of distress, and they were obvious and obviously painful. And she was like the most radiant, generous of heart, like spirited woman. She's going to write a book about it, so I don't want to go into too much detail because she's been more than 2,000 days since. I had never asked her how many were ice cream flavor days.

But I don't think there are that many new flavors, so you probably have to, there might be, actually. But isn't that amazing, you know? It's all about how we pay attention. So I always use this example, you know, as I was saying about a stranger and not really listening to them and not really taking them in and then realizing you can actually. And somebody pointed out to me, they said, you know, it's really the same in long-term relationships, you know, even friendships, you know, you sort of think, oh, I know the end of that story. You know, I know how that joke goes. I'm not listening anymore. And we just get more and more removed and we tune out

more and more. And we're left lonelier and more cut off, rather than that feeling of connection when we're just fully there. It doesn't mean we like what's happening, right? Or we're enjoying it, or we want it to continue, or we're going to put energy into making it continue. It means we're very fully alive in that moment. That's the moment of discovery. And in some ways, that's really at the heart of meditation practice. You know, we think probably most commonly of meditation these days is stress reduction and relaxing and getting calmer. And certainly it can do all that. And that's not a small thing for most of us.

That's a very good thing. But at the heart of meditation really is insight. It's understanding. It's not just being more fully present with our lives. It's actually understanding our lives more. We see certain things arise in our minds and we realize, you know, that's an old habit. That's not onward leading. I don't need to go there again. Or we see certain possibilities, like an impulse toward generosity, for example. And even though we feel kind of timid and, you know, maybe I'll regret it, we get frightened, we kind of go for it because we have more of that spirit now of understanding.

Oh, that actually helps me you know or that actually changes a dynamic in a good way and so we're willing to use our own insider understanding to make choices about our lives and there's no better thing in a sense because it is our own understanding. However many times somebody told you, you need this or you need that, whether it's a person telling you or a commercial, an ad, something. But really, how many times do we hear that? If only you had this, you would be perfectly happy forever.

So just buy it. And then buy the new model. And then buy that. Even the Dalai Lama, he tells some funny story about, I think long ago they took him, I think it was LA, somebody took him to a mall. He passed or he went into an electronics store. And he said he just wanted everything,

and he didn't even know what they were. They're just things everywhere. It's like, I understand. I want them too. So what if we turned that around, and we didn't fall into those messages, and we said, I'm going to find out for myself. I'm going to look. I'm going to find out for myself. I'm going to look. I'm going to discover.

I'm going to develop my own understanding of what really helps me be happier and what kind of brings me down and cuts me off, no matter what anybody says. Right? And so that's the possibility and the empowerment that comes from our practice. So let's sit together. You want to sit comfortably if you can, see if your back can be straight without being strained or over arched. You can close your eyes or not, however

you feel most at ease. You can start by listening to sound, either the sound of my voice or other sounds. It's a way of relaxing deep inside, allowing our experience to come and go. Just let the sounds of your breath. In this system, it's the normal, natural breath. You don't have to try to make it deeper or different. You can find the place where the breath is strongest for you or clearest for you, like the nostrils or the chest or the abdomen. Bring your attention there and just rest. See if you can, 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 going to feeling the breath, one breath at a time. And when you find your attention slips away, you get lost in thought, spun out in a fantasy, or you fall asleep, truly don't worry about it. See if you can let go gently and just bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. We let go and we begin again. 1. Thank you. Thank you for watching! Thank you. Thank you. Takk for watching! Thank you. Gå in. Thank you. Thank you. Takk for ating med. Okay. Thank you. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 52, 53, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 51, 52, 53, 59, 52, 53, 53, 59, 52, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, Takk for watching! Thank you. 1.5g salt 1.5g sugar 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey

1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey 1.5g honey Thank you. You will be happy.

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.