Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation 9/16/15 with Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: September 15, 2015

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 New York Insight Meditation Center. This week’s session will be led by Sharon Salzberg. To view a related artwork from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection, please visit: http://rma.cm/fo

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 to learn more. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and the teachers from the New York Insight 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 Rubin Museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. Down here getting the microphone put on and the picture of Mahakala was on behind me.

And Dawn said, why did you choose this for equanimity? So I took a look at it and I thought, why did I choose this for equanimity? I'm not totally sure why I did that. But I love the exploration of equanimity as a trait, as a strength. I think it's an odd word for us often. My first meditation teacher was S. N. Goenka. That was in January of 1971 in India. And he used to go around all the time saying, be equanimous, be equanimous, be equanimous. And we used to look at each other and say, and whisper, is that a word? I never heard that word. What does that mean? Is that a word? I never heard that word. What does that mean?

So even in its form of equanimity, it's a little bit hard to understand. Equanimity does not mean coldness or indifference or that kind of sullenness we can have when we're just withholding disguised as balance. Equanimity really does mean balance and in some contexts it's the balance that leads to wisdom and in some contexts it's the balance

that is born from wisdom. It's like the voice of wisdom in our lives. In terms of mindfulness, equanimity is the balance that leads to wisdom. And this has a lot to do with something like that image. It's a recognition in the Buddhist teaching. We would call it the eight vicissitudes, that life is full of change that's outside of our control. And how we relate to that is everything,

because we're not going to be able to stop it and make it just so. The eight vicissitudes are pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. So it's pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute. So it's pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. And that is a picture of everyone's life. Not, of course, in the same measure or absolute same degree, but everybody has pleasure and pain. We get what we want, we don't get what we want, or we get what we want, and it frays, it changes. We go up, we go down. It's just the nature of things. Sometimes people feel like, well, if I really practice hard,

you know, I get to be a great meditator, it'll kind of flatten out, that everything will sort of morph into this gray blob. And some people long for that and other people dread it, but it's not what happens anyway. So it's kind of irrelevant. Life just is what it is with all of its changes. One of the ways I like to describe it sometimes is years and years ago when I was traveling around the world, I was going from, it was Sweden, Calcutta, Australia. And I was with my friend Joseph Goldstein and we stopped in Calcutta to see one of our teachers,

this very beloved woman named Deepamain. She lived in a pretty poor section of town, and we spent a glorious afternoon with her where her room was just filled with light and love that she was generating. But the whole time we were with her, it was raining. It was monsoon season in Calcutta, and it just rained and rained and rained. And so we went down the stairs to go outside. Turned out that that section of Calcutta had extremely poor drainage. And what happened in that kind of intense rain was that the sewers

overflowed and the streets were filled with, like, feet of sewage. And we're standing on the curb, and Joseph's is 6'3 1⁄2", and said, well, this will be interesting, stepping off the curb. And I thought, yeah, if you're 6'3 1⁄2", it's interesting, but, you know, I could drown in this stuff. And it was loathsome. Like, every scent store was just assaulted by something unpleasant. And we finally made it back to our hotel. The next day, got on a flight, went to Australia. So the day after that, we're sitting in the Sydney Opera House, which is one of the great architectural marvels of the world, and listening to Dvorak and Brahms, and everything was beautiful. Everyone

looked good, you know. It's like everything was lovely and pleasant, and I was sitting there thinking, what happened to Calcutta? You know, that was a few days. Sometimes it's a few minutes, That was a few days. Sometimes it's a few minutes, isn't it? There's such a rich variety of changing experiences. So the idea isn't to shun them or shut down in the face of them, but being able to incorporate and integrate in a different way so that we can experience the pleasure of something fully, completely, wholeheartedly,

without adding the extra thing we usually add. It's not good enough. I need something better. Or how am I going to keep it? How am I going to make sure it never changes? Or I don't think I deserve this. So I think I'll kind of deflect the experience of it or any of a number of different kinds of conditioned responses. And we learn to experience painfully actually. Not avoiding it and not trying to pretend it's something other than what it is. But here, too, not adding the extra things we tend to add. Sense of isolation. I am the only one. Blame and shame.

I should have been able to stop this. Why am I feeling this? I've been meditating for over 40 years. Every time I'm introduced, they say that. How can this still be here? I spent $10,000 in therapy just last year. It shouldn't be here. I've got to hide this.

Whatever it is, right? Instead of having a kind of open-hearted, compassionate experience of what's painful, it actually brings us closer to one another. We can add all kinds of stuff that actually makes what is already painful really painful. It's what I call extra suffering, which we don't really need. And even with neutral experience, it's kind of interesting. We can so easily, when something is sort of neutral, it's not that pleasant, it's not that unpleasant.

We tend to numb out, we go to sleep, we snooze, we wait. We wait for something better to happen, to wake up and feel alive. So when I was first practicing a particular technique of meditation in India, which is called mental noting, we can actually play with that a little bit today, with the feeling of the breath, resting your attention on the breath, you actually silently repeat in out, something like that. And then when something comes up that is strong, not like a little drifty thing, but strong emotion or whatever, and if the word comes easily, you place a label on it.

Thinking, joy, sorrow. And you kind of get a feeling for the flavor of it. Is it pleasant? Is it unpleasant? Is it neutral? Whatever. So there was one time in India where I was working with a teacher who really emphasized mental noting, whatever activity you were doing, and I realized that I was going around this compound more than anything just repeating the mental note of waiting. Just kind of saying waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. And one day I said to myself, what are you waiting for?

And I realized I was waiting for something important enough to happen or significant enough to happen or spiritual enough to happen for me to place a label on it. And then I was in effect living my life as though a tape recorder with the pause button on. So we have pleasant experience, we have painful experience, we have neutral experience. And being able to meet each one of them without adding so much stuff is actually the definition of mindfulness. It's the most classical definition of mindfulness there is.

An awareness of what's happening in the moment that is not holding on, pushing away, or numbing out, or spacing out, getting diluted. So when we practice mindfulness, we are really practicing equanimity, inevitably, because that's what makes mindfulness what it is. And maybe another time that I'm here, we can talk about equanimity in terms of what it's like when it is the fruition of wisdom. That's equanimity as a companion to compassion, to love, caring, and also knowing.

I'm not in control. Everything changes. Things like that. But the engine for that development really is through mindfulness, through cultivating an ability to be with our experience fully and allow it to be what it is without having so many add-ons as is our habit. So why don't we sit together and I'll guide you through. You can sit comfortably, see if your back can be straight without being strained or overarched, close your eyes or not, however you feel most at ease. If you get really sleepy

it's fine to open your eyes and just continue on. And we'll start with just listening to sound, the sound of my voice or other sounds. It's a way of relaxing deep inside. It's also a little equanimity exercise. Because of course we like certain sounds and we don't like others. But we don't have to chase after them to hold on or push away. Just let them come, let them go. And you can bring your attention to the feeling of your breath, wherever you feel it most distinctly. The nostrils, the chest, the abdomen.

And if you like, you can experiment with a very quiet mental notation, like in, out, to help support the awareness of the breath. If a strong physical sensation should arise, you can open to that, recognize this is what's happening right now, most predominantly. If a word comes easily, you can label it. But the important thing is really just acknowledging, this is what's happening right now. Get a sense of whether it's pleasant or painful or neutral.

And see if you can let go, bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. If a strong emotional state arises, it's the same thing. You can recognize it. Acknowledge what's happening right now. Get a feeling for it. What's the feeling tone of it? Then see if you can let go. Bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath.

And if you find you've just spaced out, you're completely lost in thought, spun out in a fantasy or you fall asleep, truly don't worry about it. We say the most important moment is the next moment after that, when you kind of emerge. We're here too, we need a kind of equanimity or balance. Just gently let go of whatever. And see if you could bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath to begin again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes.

Thank you. May you be well and happy. 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.