Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 7/13/16 with Kate Johnson

Episode Date: July 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. This week’s session is led by Kate Johnson focusing on the theme of Healing Ourselves, Healing Our World. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: rma.cm/18d

Thank you. join us in person, please visit our website at rubinmuseum.org slash meditation. 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 artwork chosen from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. My name is Dawn Eshelman, and boy, it's been a difficult week. I think it's been a difficult week for me, personally, maybe for some of us in the room to different degrees, and for our country. And I think we're all reeling to a certain extent from the current wave of tragic shootings from Orlando to Louisiana to Minnesota to

Dallas Texas. And it is such a privilege and a pleasure to take refuge in our meditation practice. And in addition to that, I think it's important to remember that we meditate not to hide from the world or from difficult circumstances, but to really learn how to engage intentionally and with compassion with ourselves and with each other. And so it is in that spirit that we are bringing this session to you today and really framing it around a response to this epidemic and a call to action. And that

brings us to our theme today which is healing ourselves, healing the world, free. I am so thankful that Kate Johnson is here to guide us today. And she actually suggested this theme of healing ourselves, healing our world to us several weeks ago. Kate works at the intersections of spiritual practice, social action, and creative expression, and we are just so grateful that it is her who's guiding us today. We are about to be in very good hands. Kate Johnson teaches mindful yoga in New York City public schools and Buddhist meditation at the Interdependence Project. She holds a BFA in dance from the Alvin Ailey School at Fordham University and a master's in performance studies from NYU. She has trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, Laughing Lotus Yoga, and the Presencing Institute. And she has just announced that she is working on a book

about waking up to power and oppression as a spiritual practice. And that will be published by Parallax Press in the fall of 2017. Please welcome back Kate Johnson. So yeah, I'm really excited to be here with you today, and thank you for coming and expressing your willingness to work with your own heart and mind and the relationship between our individual hearts and minds and the ways in which we show up in the world, our collective heart and mind. And yeah, it was just so amazing that this topic of healing ourselves, healing our world, was certainly something that's been on my mind and seems now particularly relevant, the desire for healing. And when we looked at this piece of art

and thinking about the kind of approaching the body with mindfulness as a microcosm of our outer world, I was remembering this analogy that the Buddha was sometimes described as a doctor. And that the early teaching of the Buddha was sometimes described as a doctor, right? And that the early teaching of the Buddha on the Four Noble Truths is sometimes framed in terms of a diagnosis, so that it was said that the Buddha taught that there is suffering that exists, and this is a

symptom of a cause which is said to be clinging. So that the disease here is really needing things to be other than they are or pushing things away. Hatred, ignorance, aggression. These are said to be the root causes of the symptom, which is suffering. And that moving forward in this framework of the Four Noble Truths, the third truth is said to be that there's a cure that's possible for this disease, that liberation is possible, and that the fourth noble truth is the prescription that the Dr. Buddha offers us, that there's a path

out of suffering and that one aspect of this path is meditation. So this is how it's said to work in our individual body, mind, heart system and I've been thinking about the ways in which we might understand suffering and clinging in our individual body, mind, heart system. And I've been thinking about the ways in which we might understand suffering and clinging in our social system, within our social body. And just hanging out with the idea that when we exist in an interdependent system in which we're all somewhat near or far or more far but

inherently interconnected with the people and the animals and the earth all around us that when there's clinging an aspect of the system everyone suffers right not everyone's oppressed but everyone suffers and and sometimes the people that suffer most are not actually the people who are clinging most. Especially when we look at issues of power, money, wrong views with relationship to race. And so I don't think it's too bold to say that it seems like our social body is sick right now.

It seems to be not well. And that part of this illness seems to be related to racial bias, which I've been thinking of as really a disease of perception. as really a disease of perception. One that can be explored on an individual basis in terms of what our own internal attitudes of heart and mind are with respect to our own racial identity or the racial identity of others. But one that is also reinforced by our institution so that it's like there are these ideas

that we might have. I would say even before ideas, they're views, right? That we've picked up from the environment, from our families, from media. And then they're further reinforced by institutions like health care and education. They're all kind of slanted in the direction of benefiting people who have lighter skin. So you might be thinking at this point,

what does this have to do with mindfulness? I think that I keep thinking back to this idea of meditation as medicine, that this is one of the tools that the Buddha offered as a prescription for what hurts us individually and collectively. And I think when it comes to working with racial bias, mindfulness can be healing in a number of ways. One is simply by establishing a relationship to our own minds that is one of kindness and curiosity. And that can sound almost opposite

of what we think when we talk about diving in and looking at the places in which we might have held wrong views that we didn't even mean to pick up, but suddenly find that they're there. Also kindness when we find that we've been hurt, that we're hurting because someone's harmed us individually, or we're hurting because we see our brothers and sisters hurting, and we feel it as if it was happening to us, or we understand that perhaps it could happen to us. So there's this way in which we can cultivate a kind of awareness that is patient and kind and allows whatever is arising in the moment to be known in such a way that we can transform our relationship to it. And that itself is a healing.

And that cultivation of kindness, of the wish for happiness and well-being and protection and safety for ourselves and for others, can be a ground for what I think is a second form of healing available through mindfulness practice, which is just the ability to see clearly what's really true for us, to look at our own minds and hearts unfiltered and without denial. and that this is a really brave thing to do and it's really an act of love to kind of go in and investigate our own attitudes

to investigate the ways that we may have been hurt or harmed and our reactions to those harms but the way that I understand it it's like you know we sit and we settle and we establish this kind, gentle holding container for our experience with our own awareness.

And that in this container, sometimes we drop through contemplation or sometimes they just present themselves. Memories of times that we've been harmed, memories at times that people have harmed us. And that by allowing our mindfulness to actually gently rest and softly investigate, what was that like? We start to learn how it is that we suffer and that the mind and heart naturally want to be free. And so if we can actually engage,

the practice is called wise reflection, Yoni So Manasikara in Pali. If we can actually take our awareness and gently and kindly graze over the places that we discover suffering, where we discover wrong views, where we discover that we've been harmed, that the mind and heart start to learn

how it is that that happened and heart start to learn how it is that that happened and naturally start to let go of what doesn't serve us anymore. So I'd love to have us dive into practice and as Don mentioned there'll be time for us to discuss if you'd like to in optional small groups after this this practice the first thing that i'd like to do is something that i've been doing often in my own personal practice and it's reciting the metta sutta which is not necessarily it's not it's not like a religious practice but the metta Sutta was a teaching that the Buddha gave on how to love. And one of the phrases that I think of often with this practice,

it was, he said, just as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should we protect all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world. And so in this sutta, it's an instruction that is kind of guided in expanding the range of our hearts further and further out to slowly start to encompass all beings without exception. So I'll chant this in the Pali and if it speaks to you please feel free to connect with your own intention, what you love, what you care about in this world and your heartfelt wish for

freedom. Freedom for yourself and freedom for our whole social body. And then after that, I'll guide you in just a brief mindfulness of breathing practice to help us just settle and get in touch with the physical body, which is always a really great and accessible place to rest our awareness when we feel overwhelmed, when we feel like we're spinning out, to actually come back to the sensations of the body, which are only happening in the present moment. And then at the end of the practice, I'll guide us in a brief contemplation that will be an opportunity to reflect on harm and if it feels good to ask in an energetic way

for healing and for forgiveness. Okay? Okay. So you can go ahead and just get comfortable. Close your eyes if you'd like or just soften them to the space in front of you. head and just get comfortable. Close your eyes if you'd like or just soften them to the space in front of you. And I'll recite the sutta. It's just a minute or two and then we'll move into a silent practice. So, you know, contemplating your intention for love and liberation or just sitting back and listening,

feeling your feet on the floor, feeling your body breathing. I do this with my hands, but you certainly don't have to. Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sambudassa Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sambudassa Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sambudassa Karaniyamata Kusalena Yantam Santam Padam Abhisameca Kārāṇīya mātā kūsā lena Yāntām sāntām pādām abhīsa me ca Sākau ujū ca, sujū ca

Suvācā ca, sāmudhu anātīmāni Sāntū sakā ca, subharā ca Abhākī ca ca, salā halu kāvuti Sāntindriya ca, nipākā ca Abhākā bhākule, suvā nānukīdho Satsang with Mooji Sabe sata parantu suki tata. Ye kechi pana butati, tasa watawa rawa nawasesa. Liga yewa mahan tawa, majima rasa kanu katula. Ditawa yewa adita, yeche dure basanti yawe dure. Satsang with Mooji Kamesu inhe agedam Nahi jatuh gabaseyam Punar titi Saru, saru, saru

So taking a moment to just imagine and feel your heart's intention radiating out in front of you and behind you, to the left and the right of you, above you and below you. the right of you, above you and below you. And just this tender feeling of an open heart. The courage to love and the willingness to act in love. And then start to bring your awareness into the center of your chest, into the heart space. Just notice that you're breathing, with you all your life. So thinking about it as a friend and companion, one that can help you ventilate your experience so that any sensations that are in the heart tenderness, any stickiness

any longing that the breath starts to make more space around it and we can breathe it in and move it through. And from time to time the mind will wander to another body sensation or another thought. See if you can, for the next ten minutes or so, invite the awareness to stay with the heart. So that with our own awareness, we're demonstrating to ourselves, I won't abandon this heart, I'll stay here with this heart.

to ourselves, I won't abandon this heart. I'll stay here with this heart. This heart that I have is the perfect one to love with and to practice with. And if you like to help maintain an awareness on the breath, as you breathe in, you can silently say to yourself, breathing in, and as you breathe out, silently say to yourself, breathing out, just acknowledging what's true with the breath at this moment. I'll be here quietly for a couple minutes. Thank you. Takk for ating mediet. Every few minutes, just renewing our commitment to be present with the heart and the feeling of breathing in the heart space.

Just this one breath in, one breath out. Making space, relaxing. And tending to whatever is there. Takk for ating medietekst. Diolch yn fawr iawn am wylio'r fideo. Gå in på www.sdimedia.com Drawing the sensations of breathing into the foreground of the experience, being curious, oh, what's this in-breath feel like? What's this out-breath feel like in the heart? Gå in. Thank you. Takk for ating mediet. Thank you. Takk for ating mediet. So with this attitude of kindness, of open-heartedness, and the willingness to feel, I'll just guide you in a contemplation before we close the practice. So I'll invite you, if it feels okay, to reflect on a time when

you may have hurt someone by misunderstanding who they are, misperception. You might have inadvertently or in some other way caused harm because of who you perceive someone else to be, some aspect of their identity that you saw and made meaning out of, maybe said or did something that you're not proud of. It doesn't have to be the worst thing,

but just if there's see that person or that group of people in front of you, just take a moment to reflect on for them and for yourself that there was suffering that happened in that moment, and there was harm. And so with your heart saying to them, I care about this suffering, and I humbly ask for your forgiveness. And just seeing what that feels like.

And then letting that contemplation go, taking a breath or two, and clearing out the space of the heart, and now taking a moment to remember a time. Perhaps there was a time in your own life where someone made an assumption about you based on what they perceived your identity to be. Your race, your gender, your class. Remembering that moment, turning your awareness towards your own heart and just saying to yourself, I care about this suffering. May this suffering be eased. ourself, I care about this suffering. May this suffering be eased. May this wound be healed. And if you feel so moved, you don't have to, but if you feel moved to, you might even offer to the other person, to the

extent that it's possible, a gesture, a word of forgiveness. Only if it feels appropriate. And then go ahead and let that contemplation go. Take another breath or two. And then finally, taking a moment to reflect on a time when you might have said or done something to yourself that was unkind. So some way that you internalized messages about who you are from outside.

You know, clamped yourself down or told yourself you weren't good enough or didn't belong. And just take a moment to reflect on that and then, again, the phrase, I care about this suffering. May I be free of this suffering and to the extent that it's possible, I forgive myself in this moment. And then letting that contemplation go and just taking a couple of deep breaths, feeling the feet on the floor and the seat on the cushion.

Connecting with your heart's intention. Thank you for your practice. 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.