Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 7/27/16 with Sharon Salzberg

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 and the NY Insight Meditation Center. This week’s session is led by Sharon Salzberg focusing on the theme of Courage. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: rma.cm/1a5

Thank you. join us in person, please visit our website at rhythmmuseum.org. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the teachers from the Interdependence Project and the New York Onsite Meditation Center. 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 Rhythm Museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. Sharon Salzberg is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society. She has been studying and teaching for over 45 years, and she is the author of many fabulous books,

so helpful if you want to dive a little bit deeper and take your practice to the next level. And one of those books, her most most recent is Real Happiness at Work which you can find upstairs in our shop or online. Please give a warm welcome to Sharon Salzberg. It's really good to be back here in this beautiful space with people who take the time in the middle of the day to do something like this. And Mahakala behind me. So when I think of qualities like courage being me, in part meaning having a

strong background in Buddhist training which says look at the problem. Before you think about the quality or the attribute you want to cultivate look at the issue, look at the problem, look where the suffering is. And you build from there. I think I said here once before and actually it was with Real Happiness at Work,

meeting with the editor for that book for the first time, and she said, what do you want the chapters to be about? And I said, how about like burnout, meaninglessness, loss of integrity? And she looked completely aghast. And she said, how about balance and you know and I was like yeah that's what I said you know like but you look at the problem so of course I began thinking about fear as soon as we settled on the topic of courage and as I've also talked about here before and I

talk about many times I feel I've learned a lot looking at my own fear. And one of the attributes of mindfulness is that we pay attention to a huge variety of different experiences, emotional, cognitive, in the body, surrounding us. We learn to pay attention, and it's actually the quality of the attention where we're not adding a whole lot of stuff, you know, conclusions, projection into the future, judgments that allows us to see what we're looking at so much more cleanly and clearly. That's why mindfulness is considered the basis for insight or wisdom. So I've spent no

short amount of time just looking at my fear, because that's what was coming up. And one of the profound things I've seen is that, in contrast to the usual saying, which of course is also true, that we're afraid of the unknown, I found that I'm largely afraid, actually, when I think I do know, and it's going to be really bad. And it's the stories that I tell myself, you know, this dreadful things are going to happen, and that dreadful things are going to happen. That's when I get really afraid. And even in the midst of that, if I can remind myself, you don't know, then I feel space. I feel relief. So that has been actually an incredible tool for me to bring into my life. So there's the kind of fear that is useless, right? What if my plane is late? I don't know.

I don't know, you know, I'm not even at the airport yet. It's just useless. And it, you know, it leaves us stressed and no more certain about what we're going to do should the event arise than we were before. We got into all of that worry and anxiety and fear. There's a kind of fear, though, that I think is more like a signal. You know, something's wrong. Something is heading more likely than not toward something very, very difficult. And that's just a signal.

How we respond to it is really everything. We don't need to respond falling into with seeming certainty because there is a level we don't know. We also, and I think even my looking at Mahakala sitting over there, I was realizing that for me maybe the most toxic part of fear is a sense of helplessness and that's why action, even a very small action toward the good, toward not feeling so alone toward even some seemingly minor

step toward resolution of something or toward greater clarity, that's why it feels so good. Because we deal with adversity so much in our lives. And we deal with it in such a variety of ways, depending on a lot of internal and external conditions. How alone do we feel? Or how connected to others do we feel? How compassionate do we feel toward ourselves and or toward others? Or how bitter and resentful do we feel?

How much are we blaming ourselves for something we could never, ever, ever have controlled to begin with? How much are we cultivating a kind of flexibility of attention so we can see something from many perspectives, many sides. And how much are we caught in tunnel vision? How much do we feel that we have some inner resource to meet what's happening? And how much do we feel there's nothing happening inside? We're just depleted.

All of that will make a very big difference. Same adversity, same stress, same difficulty, same kind of frightening situation. So that's the realm of our work. I think it takes a lot of courage to get through a day, really. A lot of that happens in a day. And even if nothing happens, it happens in our minds. You know?

So, but the courage isn't the sort of effort to vanquish the fear. I think the courage is the marshalling of all those other resources so that we don't face a difficulty and find we're drowning in that sense of helplessness. I mean, even if you can't make the situation go away for yourself or for someone else, really no one needs to feel so alone in facing difficulty. And that's actually a lot of what came up in my mind, looking at that image of Mahakala, that there are forces to the good.

We all have them in our own personal lives. If we look for them, either friends or mentors or sources of inspiration, even if we've never met them. And then there are kind of more mythic reminders that there's something beyond our immediate situation that we can align ourselves. If you have a sense of lineage, then it's like aligning yourself with those who've come before, any tradition, any pursuit, who have determined not to just live conventionally, to see more deeply, to act on behalf of others.

And there are forces in the sense of symbolic forces that can remind us, like, that's in me too, you know? Like, that's in you both sides, actually. The little thing being squished. And as well as the sort of, you know, wrathful manifestation of strength. Wrathful doesn't mean enraged, right? It just means strong. And so it's all within ourselves, and we can forget about that strength

and that sense of dignity and not just giving in. But we can also remember. And that's another thing that we do in the process of meditation is we are reminded, because we are simply looking, we're reminded of so much that we might overlook just through the force of habit. you could say destructive emotion or painful emotion like fear, is that its very nature is a kind of tunnel vision. Like if you think about the last time you were really afraid,

it might have been very recently, I don't know. But if you think about the last time you were really afraid, it tends to be a time, I don't mean just feeling the fear, I mean locked in there. It tends to be a time where we don't also think, well, you know, maybe there are options. If things don't work out this way, maybe they'll work out another way. It's like those options disappear.

And it's just this funnel that's so tight. That's just the nature of being lost in an emotion like that. And so our effort is really a rightful one, which is to broaden our perspective. It's not to deny the difficulty or the potential damage or whatever it might be, but maybe we don't have to be so locked in and we don't have to have our vision so occluded

through something like fear. And that's why they say love or loving kindness is like an antidote. It's connection. It's something that's broadening our perspective. It's why they say anger functions in the same way as fear. When we're lost in anger, when we're locked in there, then we tend to have really strong tunnel vision. And that's not to say anything is bad as a quality,

but it's consequential. It has a certain nature. So if we're locked in there, we're going to have tunnel vision. That's not to say anything is bad as a quality, but it's consequential. It has a certain nature. So if we're locked in there, we're going to have tunnel vision. If you think about the last time you were really angry, let's say it yourself, just bring it back for a moment. It's likely not a time when you're also thinking, you know, I did those five great things the same morning, right?

They're gone. It's like, we're locked in. And the nature of certain emotions, gratitude, love, connection, is broadening. That's their very nature. It opens us up, right? So energetically, they're different. They also say that one of the antidotes to being locked into anger in that way is interest. Taking an interest in something is energetically very different than trying to push it away. And you can see courage in the same light.

and you can see courage in the same light. Courage and curiosity probably have something to do with one another, right? A willingness to step forward, to experience, to see more deeply. So it's the broadening that is really our ally, because then we're actually seeing more truthfully, more realistically. That doesn't mean fear is our enemy. It means being locked in will have some very painful consequences and very limiting consequences for us. So why not? Let's see if we can develop a different relationship to the experiences we have so that we can go forward in a better way. And remember that Mahakala is in there somewhere, ready to take a stand.

Okay, so let's sit together. See if you can sit comfortably. You can close your eyes or not. However you feel most at ease. You can take a few deep breaths. Let your breath settle and become natural. See if you can find the place where the breath is strongest for you or clearest for you. And in this system, it's just the normal, natural breath. You don't have to try to make it deeper or different.

Find the place where the breath is strongest for you. Bring your attention there and just rest. See if you can feel one breath without being concerned for what's already gone by, without leaning forward for even the very next breath. Just this one. Thank you.... If you like, 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 if images or sounds or sensations or emotions should arise, but they're not all that strong, if you can stay connected to the feeling of the breath, just let them flow on by. You're breathing. It's just one breath. Thank you.. If something comes up with a bang, it's quite strong, it pulls your attention away,

see if you can just recognize what it is. Joy, sorrow, whatever it might be. Without judgment, just an act of recognition. This is what's happening right now. And then see if you can bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. And for all those perhaps many times you're just gone. You wake up out of some incredible fantasy, or you've fallen asleep. It's all right.

We say the most important moment is the next moment after you've been gone, where we have the chance to not judge ourselves or be down on ourselves, but gently let go, bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. END Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.... Thank you. Now you'll be happy. Thank you. Thank you. applause

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.