Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 7/20/16 with Kate Johnson

Episode Date: August 29, 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/19m

Thank you. join us in person, please visit our website at ribbonmuseum.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 artwork chosen from the ribbon museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. Kate Johnson is here with us today. Again, she teaches mindful yoga in the New York City Public Schools and Buddhist meditation at the Interdependence Project. She holds a BFA in dance from the Alvin Ailey School, Fordham University, and a master's of performance studies from NYU. She's trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project,

Laughing Lotus Yoga, and the Presencing Institute. And she's just recently 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. Hi there. How's it going? It's good to be here again today, and also really good to be able to revisit the topic of healing, both healing ourselves and what potential that might have for our capacity to bring healing into our communities, our families, our neighborhoods, the world at large. And it occurred to me that one of the, I guess,

prerequisites for the capacity to heal is the ability to actually turn and look with eyes of love at the wound, what the wound is, and that this is not easy work, then there's this human, I think very human, tendency to want to distance ourselves from that which is painful, both what's painful in our own experience and what's painful in the world around us. And we can see that in different ways.

Certainly for me, that there are times where physically there's something that's, you know, a little pain in my back that I don't pay attention to until I have a full-on back spasm. And then suddenly it's like, okay, okay, I'll go to the doctor, you know. Maybe some of you have had that experience. And then also, I think when there's a sense of suffering outside, there can be a worry about whether it's safe to allow ourselves to really turn towards that and to take it in. Certainly when there's a lot of suffering in the world outside, it can feel, there can be a fear of overwhelm. Like if I actually let all of this in, will I just collapse with grief? Will I be able to still

go to work and show up for my family and go to the grocery store, whatever it is that I actually need to do on a daily basis to sustain myself? And so what I wanted to offer today is a practice that's a traditional practice that comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition called Tonglen, which literally means sending and taking. Sending and taking. And this practice is a way of starting to soften and work with our fear and resistance around suffering, both our own and other suffering.

And the word that I'm translating as suffering right now is dukkha. That's the Pali word, the word that the Buddha used to describe this situation. One of the facts of life that suffering sometimes exists. And that the word dukkha can reflect both everything from just like a mild sense of stress or something's not quite right to the most intense heartbreak we can imagine and everything along that spectrum. So it's said that sometimes in our human life we encounter dukkha, either internally or externally. And that it's worth contemplating this

for two things. One, it's something that if we are continuously running away from, we actually, it becomes more painful. But there's something about not only the initial pain, but also the resistance to that pain that actually produces more discomfort and stress and dis-ease. Whereas if we're able to look honestly with it and hold it, there's a sense that like, oh, this can actually heal now.

honestly with it and hold it, there's a sense that, oh, this can actually heal now. And that often in meditation, we are still, you know, little bits of dukkha kind of rise to the surface, and they're offering themselves to be held in this particular way. And that also by working with our resistance and our fear of suffering, that we can actually start to increase our capacity and become more available to be a healing agent in our communities, however we see that, whether it's our work life and our friendships. And so I guess I want to say that because we're not doing compassion practice in order to depress ourselves or something. It's not like, now I'm going to focus on suffering,

and that we're doing that or something because we're being really good, but that we're slowly starting to increase our capacity to both feel deeply and respond appropriately. capacity to both feel deeply and respond appropriately. And so for this, I wanted to read this passage from an elder activist and community leader named Grace Lee Boggs, who I just love. She was an activist to the very end of her life. She lived to 100 years and 100 days and lived in Detroit the whole time, making community gardens and feeding people.

And she talks about this increased capacity for feeling and responding. Here she says, these are the times to grow our souls. Each of us is called upon to embrace the conviction that despite the powers and principalities bent on commodifying all of our human relationships, we have the power to begin the world anew. So I've been reading that every day to remind me of the tremendous power of compassion. And I guess I want to say before going into this practice

that there's a way in which we can approach compassion practice with a really sense of balanced mindfulness. Some might refer to this quality as bringing in the quality of equanimity along with compassion. And that's because the growing of the heart, the growing of the soul in compassion practice is a gradual path. And that it's not the kind of path where we kind of like, you know, throw the gates open or like bring it all in, you know. throw the gates open, they're like, bring it all in, you know, that we can actually have a negative reaction to that, and our whole kind of heart can clamp down because it's too much, and so to balance compassion, we bring in the quality of equanimity, which there are certain phrases that

are sometimes used, but what I'll suggest today and what we'll start with is accessing equanimity through a feeling in the body of the body being solid. Sometimes it's suggested that we sit as a mountain of a body resting on the earth. So we have a sense of support and stability and safety that's offered through the ground itself that we can access and rely on. And that there's a certain kind of spatial relationship that we're exploring with the contemplation. So you've probably noticed that with awareness, there's a way in which you can focus in really

tightly on a detail and kind of get really, so almost like an aperture on a camera lens, like it can get very small and detailed, or it can get very wide and spacious, where we have a kind of panoramic sense of what's going on. And so when things start to feel kind of too tight or too overwhelming, it can be very helpful to lean back into awareness, into this more kind of equanimous, wide view type of awareness. So I'll just invite you to go through the practice to pull back at any time

if it feels like it's too much, or also to work with the breath as a way to ventilate the experience. So we'll go ahead and dive into practice. We'll be practicing for about 20 minutes. And the first half, we'll do a kind of equanimity, mindfulness of breathing practice. And the second half, I'll guide some contemplations around compassion, sending and taking. And so for this, you can go ahead and lower your gaze or close your eyes if it feels okay. And the feet can be resting on the floor if possible.

Hands can be palms down or up or clasped in the lap, but somewhere where the hands feel like they can really rest. Embodying at this moment both a sense of relaxation, of deepening into the earth below, and then also a sense of openness or spaciousness. You can think of the top of the head being open to the sky, even as the feet are planted on the earth. And then starting to either feel into or if the visualization is accessible to you, to visualize the body as a mountain.

This is the metaphor for equanimity. Feeling the groundedness and especially the width at the bottom of the body, so the sense of really occupying space, solidity. And then as you move up and in towards the peak of that mountain where the head is, that there's a real sense of clear air, cool air, so much space. space and a very wide 360-degree perspective. And so I'll invite you to stay in touch with this felt sense of the body as a mountain, of sitting as a mountain, as you start to work with the sensations of breathing. If the visualization is really working for you, you might even imagine the breath as wind blowing one direction,

blowing the other direction over the top of the mountain. Thank you. so from time to time just noticing where the awareness is and then inviting that image and that sense of sitting as a mountain and the awareness of breathing to come back into the foreground of the experience. So coming back again and again to this image and this felt sense as a way to gather and unify the mind and encourage a sense of spacious presence

and equanimity. And wide awareness. Thank you. Thank you. As we sit, thoughts and emotions will come and go, other body sensations. See if you can observe them as if looking at features of a landscape. But then still allow the sense of the body as mountain, feeling the breath as body, to be the most prominent thing in your awareness. So sense of loyalty to that image and that feeling.

which can itself be very healing in times of overwhelm or busy mind. Thank you. Thank you.... body solid like a mountain, and my mind wide like the sky. I'm feeling the body breathing. Thank you. Thank you. And so now I'll invite you into the Compassion Contemplation Tonglen. And we'll start by just continuing to allow the awareness to be wide and the body feeling to be solid. But imagining that within that whole landscape

that there's just a gentle spotlight on the space of the heart. So if you can get a sense of the whole body still, but a special focus on the heart space. I'm not needing to go in with a sharp probe or anything, but just letting the awareness gently illuminate the space of the heart. Getting a felt sense of the texture of the heart,

the weight of the heart, the weight of the heart, the temperature. Taking the attitude that whatever's present in the heart is a perfect place to start to practice, whether it's a lot of sensation or not a lot. And then notice if there's anything in the heart that is tender or in need of care at this moment. Some place of discomfort or worry or grief even. And imagine the awareness holding that hurt with just so much tenderness, almost like holding a baby.

that hurt with just so much tenderness, almost like holding a baby. So there's a sense of, oh, I care about this. Whether to someone else it would seem big or small, it doesn't matter. I care about this suffering. and then we'll move into the ascending and taking part which is as you breathe in to actually breathe in deeply to the space of the heart that suffers

breathing in any constriction, any resistance any hurt and then as you breathe out, breathing out spaciousness and openness and clarity and ease. So again, breathing in any discomfort and deepening into any hurt place as you breathe in and breathing out spaciousness, openness, clarity into your own heart and into the world.

So we'll do that a few times on your own. Breathing in, not resisting any construction. Breathing out openness, spaciousness, peacefulness. And then growing in the scope of our awareness, I invite you to consider other people in this world that might be suffering in the same way that you are right now. Other people who have had similar experiences, who are also working with the same type of suffering.

Just expanding your awareness to include all of them. And then practicing like this as you breathe in, breathing in any discomfort or constriction or tightness for that whole group, including yourself, and as you breathe out, breathing out spaciousness and openness and clarity and ease to that whole group. and clarity and ease to that whole group. Breathing in difficulty,

breathing out spaciousness, openness, peace, and ease, so that we're actually transforming the qualities of that energy with our own heart and dismantling our resistance to be with what hurts. And then finally, as if through our own hearts and tension, we've actually cleared away any difficulty or tension or stress that exists. Starting to breathe in clarity and peace and ease and breathe out clarity and peace and ease. So back again to the clear, cool air at the top of the mountain. Thank you. And then we'll start to move towards closing the practice by letting go of that visualization.

Just feeling into what the body feels like right now, sitting in this chair. How the heart and mind are doing. And if there's any person or group of people that you'd like to dedicate the benefits of your practice today, if there's a group of people that you'd like to invite into your heart at this moment, or an individual person who you can use some love,

just hold them in your heart for a few seconds. Energetically sharing the benefits of your practice with them. And then I'll go ahead and ring the bell to close the practice. And when I do, you can feel free to open your eyes and stretch your body, look around the room, take some deep breaths. I'll just bow to your practice. Thank you so much for joining today. May you be well. May you have all the strength that you need

to meet whatever challenges. Thank you. That concludes this week's practice. Thank you.