Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Jon Aaron

Episode Date: May 1, 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 8:10.Teacher: Jon AaronTheme: AwakeningBuddha Ratnasambhava and Goddess in a Lotus Petal; Northeastern India; 11th–12th century; copper alloy; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin; C2003.55.3Learn 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, Tashida-Lake and welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program. I am Tashi Children, 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've chosen for today. We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher John Aaron, and then we will have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation guided by him.

The artwork for today's session is this beautiful, very intricate figure of Buddha Ratna Sambava and goddess in a lotus paddle. Ratna Sambava is known as Rinchen Jungne or Rinchen Jungden in Tibetan, literally means jewel-born or a source of jewels. This is origin northern eastern India, dated 11 to 12th century, and it's a copper alloy. The size is about four quarter into one three-fourth into two inches. And this is a sculpture.

The theme for the month of May is awakening. Emerging from the pedal of a lotus, Ratna Sambava reminds us that our life begins to blossom and awaken when we embody generosity. In this delicate sculpture, Buddha Ratna Sambava and a goddess share a singular lotus petal. Perhaps this might have been a part of a bigger sculpture. The word Rathna means jewel and Rathna Sambava is affiliated with the jewel family. His right hand is extended in the mudra of supreme generosity. Ratna Sambava is one of the Buddhas of the five families.

Each Buddha is associated with the cardinal direction. You can discover more about them through the Rubens Mandala Lab. Ratna Sambava presides over the southern direction. He is associated with overcoming pride and developing equanimity. Now let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher is John Aaron. John Aaron is a teacher in Dharma and Mindfulness in Chicago, New York, and online. He has been a teacher at New York Insight since 2006.

And for the last 18 months, since moving to Chicago, he's an advisor with the Spiritual Life Office at the University of Chicago and has started an Insight Sanga. in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. He's a certified mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher and teacher trainer and a founding member of the Global Mindfulness Collaborative. With his partner, Upayadi, he's the co-guiding teacher of the online community Spaced to Meditate, which will be entering its seventh year in March. along with the scholar Doug Smith, he is co-host of the podcast Digging the Dharma currently in its fifth season. John, thank you so much for being here.

So greetings, friends, happy to be here today with you. So our theme for the month seems to be the theme of awakening. Always a wonderful theme. It's really why we practice, actually. So I'll say a few things about it now and then come back to it after the meditation. So awakening itself can mean many different things. But in my experience, when we first come to practice, we wake up to certain things that we were falling asleep through before. You know, we wake up to what's actually here right now in front of us.

And we start to realize in those moments that most of the time we're not in this moment, our mind is either thinking about what's about to come or fantasizing about what's to come or reminiscing about what was. And whenever we do that, of course, we're no longer right here, right now, except in the sense that we're always right here, right now. So that's a bit of a co-on in its sense. where we might be here right now, but our mind is off somewhere else. But once we know that moment that we know that our mind is off somewhere else,

thinking about the future or reminiscing about the past, in that moment we've actually woken up just for that moment. And for me also, the practice of meditation was once said, and I can't remember what great teacher. said it, that enlightenment or waking up or nabana is an accident. And meditation makes us more accident prone, which is true, I must say. But this thing we call awakening, this thing we call enlightenment, this thing that's called nabana, doesn't have to happen when we're meditating.

It can happen at any moment. We can wake up at any moment. And when the Buddha said in his third noble truth that there is freedom from suffering, there is freedom, he meant that that freedom is available to anyone any time. It may not hang around for long, for most of us, but the more we practice, the more opportunities we provide. So when I practice and when I guide practice, I will often say, allow each in-breath to wake you up to what's here. right now. It's like the in-breath itself is a reminder to pay attention, to be present. The out-breath can be useful when it comes to just letting go of whatever we don't need.

It's letting go of that bothering worry, letting go of that disturbing memory, perhaps, letting go of the news. There's plenty to let go of at any moment. And our practice is a reminder of that. So I'm going to start the meditation now, and I'll end with a poem, and then talk about, the poem uses a number of images,

and I want to talk about those images in the context of Buddhist images as well. and common Buddhist words, one in particular. So that's a teaser. So for now, just finding a comfortable posture, a posture which is upright and alert, informs the body that it's not just sitting around, maybe take a couple of very deep and deliberate breaths.

And as you're taking those breaths, just being aware of where the breath is most of the other. and then resting the awareness on this breath as an anchor or on the whole body breathing and allowing each in-breath to wake you up, wake you up to what's here, what's true just now, and each out-breath is a reminder to let go of whatever isn't needed. And of course, what arises moment to moment are sensory experiences of sound, touch, air quality, quality of light, maybe residual taste in the mouth, and thoughts also

will arise in the present experience. So our practice is noticing the arising of these experiences without holding onto them, without making stories up about them. And in those moments where we find ourselves really lost in thought, the moment we see that moment we are aware of it is the moment that we're awake. And while we're awake, we come back to this breath, to this body, to the truth of this moment. And there will be times as we're meditating. There may be times when the mind is not reaching out for anything, when the mind feels unified and complete. And when the mind is in that place of unification,

where the mind feels at ease, it's not reaching out for anything. It's not trying to have an experience. When the mind reaches that place of ease, of not reaching out for anything else, just allowing that to be without holding to it, without needing it to be better than it is, simply recognizing that state of ease, which has been here all along, enjoy it.

This is a poem by William Stafford called The Dream of Now. When you wake to the dream of now from night and its other dream, you carry day out of the dark like a flame. When you wake to the dream of now from night and its other dream, you carry day out of the dark like a flame. when spring comes north and flowers unfold from earth and its even sleep. You lift summer on with your breath, lest it be lost ever so deep. Your life you live by the light you find and follow it on as well as you can.

Carrying through the darkness wherever you go, your one little fire that will start again. So what I find interesting in that poem is the use of the word light and the use of the word fire in the last stanza. Your life you live by the light you find and follow it on as well as you can. Carrying through the darkness wherever you go, your one little fire that will start again. And what's so interesting to me is that images of light and fire, of course, are used in many traditions, spiritual traditions.

The word nabana, or nirvana, which is often a word used for enlightenment, the poly tradition and the Sanskrit tradition, actually means extinguishing. It's extinguishing the fires of delusion. and it's in extinguishing the fires of delusion that awakening is possible because we've seen through the delusion in a sense we've seen through the dream that is our life

and suddenly things become much clearer at least for a moment or two when one is fully awakened presumably that clarity is present all the time and what's important to realize is that you know once that clarity is experience and I think we've all probably experienced it a bit a it's important to recognize it when it arises when that freedom arises that freedom from delusion that clarity of what's really true it's important to recognize that and it's also

important to realize it's nothing special it was here all the time we just put up a lot of obstacles to it. You know, that's the nature of life, the nature of being human. And once we start to see through that, suddenly we become much more human and much more humane. And this innate quality of compassion, which is also present within all of us, really starts to shine through because there's nothing getting in the way. We see through that boundary of self and other and recognize that there is no self and other. There is only this experiencing. And when that's seen clearly,

we experience awakening in its truest sense. And in the meantime, we experience it in smaller ways. And those smaller ways add up in my experience. And we recollect that experience and know that we can come back to it. and also know in a way that it's nothing special. So there's the famous illustration.

It's known as the ox-herding pictures. It's a Zen tradition. And it's about a man who's sort of in search. He's a seeker. And it goes and finds the ox, which is trying to control the ox, which is his mind, basically. He has to find the ox first,

you don't see it and know what it is. And then there's some time taming it. And by the time he tames it, he's able to sort of basically sit on it and ride home playing his flute. He gets home and the illusion of the ox, the dream of the ox, disappears. He experiences unity.

So reaching out. and then he goes back to the market and lives his life. Right? So in a way nothing has changed but everything has changed. And that's why we practice to have these experiences, to see this clarity, to experience this clarity. And the more we experience it, the more we live our life from that place, And that to me, personally, is why I practice, partly to be reminded that it's there, that this potential for freedom is always present.

I don't have to go get it. It's here. I just have to clear the way for it to shine through. And to me, that's really what meditation is about. And that's what practice is about. So in these last few minutes, we'll just close with a loving-kindness practice. And I invite you to really recollect those moments where you've experienced freedom, and particularly those moments where the freedom has opened up something else.

Freedom has opened up that heart of kindness, that heart of compassion, which is always present as well, comes with the package. and recollect those moments where you've been kind to yourself and kind to others. Allow that feeling to really inhabit the heart and expand through the body. And as you do this, it may be experienced as warmth or light, as the poem was referring to. And imagine that light radiating out in all directions, recognizing that you are both radiating this quality of unconditional love, this quality of compassion.

And as you are doing that, others are doing it as well. So we're both embracing and being embraced. And as we come to the end of this session, sharing the merit that we gain through our practice for the well-being of all without exception. opening to the possibility that all beings without exception, they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, regardless of their circumstances.

That all beings be free from fear and the causes of fear, and that all beings find peace, and that all beings be free. Thank you for your practice. And thank you so much for that, John. and thank you all for joining. Tashi Dele. That concludes this week's practice.

If you enjoyed this podcast or are a weekly listener, we invite you to support this series by donating and becoming a friend of the Rubin at Ruben Museum.org slash friends. The Rubin is a nonprofit that relies on the generous support of donors like you to create meaningful experiences

with Himalayan art around the world. If you are looking for more inspiring content, check out our other podcasts, Awaken, which uses art to explore the dynamic path to enlightenment and what it means to wake up, available wherever you listen to podcasts. And to learn more about the Rubin Museum's work around the world, sign up for our newsletter at Rubinmuseum.org slash newsletter. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.