Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Elaine Retholthz

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art presents a weekly meditation for beginners and skilled meditators alike. Each episode is inspired by a different work of art from the Museum’s collection and is led by a prominent meditation teacher.The episode begins with an opening talk followed by a 20-minute meditation. In this episode, the guided meditation begins at 06:59.Teacher: Elaine RetholtzTheme: Open-MindednessMedical Painting on Prophylactics, Diagnosis, and Therapeutic Principles, Illustration to the Medical Treatise the Blue Beryl, chapters 23-28; Central Tibet; 19th century; pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin; C2006.66.514Learn more about the Rubin’s work around the world at rubinmuseum.org.

Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast, presented by the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, a global museum dedicated to bringing greater awareness and understanding of Himalayan art to people around the world. I'm your host, Tashi Children. Every week, we offer a meditation session that draws inspiration from an artwork from the Rubin's collection and is led by a prominent meditation teacher. You can find more information about the related artwork. in the episode description. Our mindfulness meditation podcast is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg

and teachers from the New York Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and supported by the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism. And now, please enjoy your practice. Hello everybody, Tashidele. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program. I'm Tashi Chardun, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador, and I'm delighted to be a host today. The Rubin is a global museum dedicated to presenting Himalayan art and its insights,

and we're so glad to have all of you join us for our weekly program where we combine art and meditation. Inspired by our collection, we will first take a deep look at the work of art we have chosen for today. We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, Elaine Rehacken, and then we will have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation guided by her. The artwork for today's session is this beautiful medical painting on prophylactics, diagnosis, and therapeutic principles, illustration to the medical treaties, the blue barrel from chapters 23 to 28.

The Tibetan medical tankas are known as Mentang from the Sauri. This is origin central. Tibetan dated 19th century, mineral pigments on cloth, and this is about 32, three-fourth into 26 and a half inches, and a medical Thanka chart. So the theme for the month of April is open-mindedness, the medical treatise, the Blue Barrel interviews, medicine, spirituality, and cosmology. Instead of fragmenting reality into separate domains, the text integrates the body, mind and cosmos, demonstrating open-mindedness. Tibetan medicine has been practiced throughout the Himalayas in Inner Asia for centuries.

It is rooted in classical Indian Ayuradic medicine and incorporates elements of Chinese Greco-Arabic and indigenous medical knowledge. Tibetan medical practice integrates Buddhist ideas and is deeply connected to the Tibetan cultural worldview. Tibetan medicine has a holistic approach to health and well-being. There is an emphasis placed on balancing the mind, body, and spirit. Tibetan doctors diagnose patients by conducting interviews and observations and taking pulse readings. In fact, to a certain extent, just by looking at your texture and the skin color, they can say what's happening in your body. Treatments include modifying diet, prescribing compound medicines and surgery. From a Tibetan medical standpoint,

true well-being is reached through attaining enlightenment and release from the cycle of rebirth, known as samsara. Therefore, medical treatment provides temporary relief. The primary focus is on maintaining vitality, longevity, and liberation from the worldly sufferings. So now let's bring on teacher for today, our teacher is Elaine Rethals. Elaine Rethals has been studying and practicing the Dharma since 1988. In addition to teaching Dharma at New York Insight, she's certified both as a mindfulness-based stress reduction, MBSR teacher and a MBSR teacher trainer. Elaine has a deep interest in helping students integrate mindfulness into daily life.

Elaine, thank you so much for being here. So I'm so happy to be here today, and I was so delighted to see the artwork choices. This choice of the artwork that depicts medicine is close to my heart because I'm a Chinese medicine practitioner and an acupuncturist, and so much of Chinese medicine has to do with, with seeing our connection to nature. And in Buddhism, so much of our suffering, and also in our bodies, when we have dis-ease, you know, when clients would come to me,

so much of the stress comes from seeing ourselves as separate from nature, somehow, separate. There's the rest of the world, the rest of the universe, and there's human beings. And in both Buddhism and in Chinese medicine, the meditation and connection to the elements is really important. And in the Buddhist teaching on the Saty Patan Asuta Suta, which is the four fields where we can practice mindfulness, one of the aspects of mindfulness of the body is mindfulness of elements. mindfulness of the elements. And the elements are earth, air, fire, and water. So I wanted to

guide a meditation on the elements. And for me, there are a couple of really wonderful benefits to practicing, sometimes bringing this meditation, this consciousness into our lives. And the first one is that as we become familiar with how these elements live within us and fuse us are the same as the elements around us, we don't take things so personally. we can see the emptiness, the non-self nature of our experience, just elements, conditions coming together. So let's see how it is. And I'll be guiding throughout, there'll be, yeah, opportunity to reflect.

So as you come into whatever posture you're, choosing today. It could be seated, it could be standing, it could be lying down. Taking a moment to feel the weight of the body, and then we can experience the weight in many ways. I don't know how to describe weightiness, but one of the ways we can feel it is through heaviness, through the different sensations of contact, whether it's the feet on the floor or the thighs and buttocks on a chair or a cushion could be the weight of the arms resting on the lap this is the earth element the earth element is solidity and weight hardness so clearly the bones and the teeth

in the body, or earth element. You can perhaps take a moment to visualize the skeleton below, the skin and flesh, the skull, the vertebrae in the neck, the collar bones, and the shoulder blades, the upper arms, and the lower arms, and all of the bones, so many bones in the hands, and the hands. and fingers, the spine, the pelvic bowl, the upper legs, and all the bones that make up the knee joint, the lower legs, and the bones of the ankles and the feet, toes, the earth element. Outside we have rocks, we have soil, minerals, so many manifestations, of course, of the earth element. In modern day we have asphalt and pavement, right?

Bricks, Earth element. And so whether you're in what we call the country and in nature or here in a city, Earth element, in the body, Earth element. And as one of the teachers likes to say, is it really that different? are we really that different internally externally and staying connected to the body and continuing this exploration now shifting a bit to explore the water element the water element has the qualities of fluidity and cohesion we can think of a river flowing of the waves in an And we can also think of playing on the beach and taking the dry sand that just flies away and adding water to it so that we can build sandcastles, cohesion.

So in our bodies, blood, lymph, sweat, saliva, so many fluids in the body, the fluids in our joints that lubricate and help us to move. And many of us have experienced what happens when that dries out and the discomfort that can arise, water element. And then if we consider the flesh, the area below the skin, how the water is mixing with the earth element to create muscles and tendons and ligaments, each with varying degrees of moisture, this body that,

that seems so solid is, what is it? I don't remember, somewhere between 70 and 90% water, the water element in the body. And outside, in addition to rivers and oceans and streams, there's the rain and the fog and the humidity and dew. And many of us are aware how our bodies respond to different levels of dryness and moisture, humidity, and how we're really dependent on the climate and the environment for optimal health to dry and perhaps our sinuses can start to bleed, or our mouths get really dry, too moist. And besides, you know, the discomfort of sweat, there can be pain in the joint. and elsewhere, water element, interdependent, internally, externally, not so different.

Turning now to explore the fire element, warmth and heat, or the absence of fire, coldness. It manifests outside, certainly, you know, coming from the sun, there's heat, different seasons of the year, sometimes extremely warm, maybe now getting even warmer, and also the absence of heat and fire and freezing, but also manifests as fire, whether it's fires that warm us or fires that destroy, forest fires, and so on. And if the fire element, generated, whether it's by solar or wind or turbo, that produces electricity and other forms of energy, the fires that warm our homes in whatever form.

And internally, all that goes into this body being able to control the internal temperature, and keeping it in homeostasis relatively stable. and yet we've also all experienced fevers, which is the body's way of fighting infection. We've experienced the fire element, perhaps mixed with water element in night sweats or just dry with hot flashes. There's also the fire of digestion that's needed to digest our foods. of course outside, the fire element is needed to grow our crops. And these elements can also manifest in our thoughts and emotions. So most of us are familiar with the fire of anger or the coldness, the absence of warmth

that can come with ill will or the warmth of connection and kindness and care. So it's not just about contemplating the body, but in the midst of emotional or thought storms, we can identify, oh, this is a watery thought. This thought is heavy. This thought has some fire in it. And just as fire externally can warm and energize, give rise to life, fire internally, fire internally, can warm and energize, give rise to life, fire internally. Fire internally can do the same, warm, connect, energize, necessary for a living for this body. And just as externally fire can destroy, as can water, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and earth, landslides, earthquakes. within us, these elements have the power to give life and also if out of balance might give rise to

actions of speech or thought or actions themselves. I need to stay balanced. So the last element is the element of air. In the body and in our meditation practice, we may be most familiar with this element through the experience of the breath, just knowing each in-breath, knowing each out-breath. And as we are mindfully aware of the breath, we can also notice sometimes there's coolness or warmth, how just being in the body itself brings warmth to the breath, moisture to the breath. And in Chinese medicine, at least, air is related to wind. and so movement. It's a different kind of movement than the fluidity of water.

Thinking of the wind and all it can carry and stir up. And it's also associated with change. And so how can this be known in the body? This air that we take in that's produced by plants and trees, plankton. And as we breathe out, this connection we have. with all beings, all plant life that need the carbon dioxide that we produce. Is it really different within us than it is without us, without us, outside us? In our daily lives and in our activities, we can experience, become more sensitive to

the interplay of these elements. Walking, there's movement, heaviness, fluidity, heat or coldness. coldness, resting, the weight of the body at rest, just sensitizing ourselves. And also we can become sensitive to the play of the seasons. Depending on where you are, there might be a hot season or a rainy season or a dry season. And becoming sensitive to have the body in that season. responds naturally to an environment that might not be mediated by heat or air conditioning or dehumidifiers. So mindfulness of the body, knowing the body, the breath,

the postures, the activities, and adding this contemplation of elements to this foundation. So as we close the practice, perhaps taking a purposeful inhalation, really feeling the in-breath and how it travels through the body, feeling the temperature and moisture and perhaps sometimes the breath can have this element of earth, heaviness or lightness, and exhaling, gifting our breath to the world. just very practice of awareness of the breath can become a gratitude practice and a generosity practice

of receiving the breath from those who produce oxygen, the beings on this earth that we rely on, and gifting our breath to all those earthly beings that are dependent on it. May all beings everywhere be at ease and be safe and protected and understand just how interrelated we are. Thank you for your practice. And thank you so much for that, Elaine, and thank you all for joining. That concludes this week's practice.

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