Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Kimberly Brown 01/02/2025

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

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  08:28.Teacher: Kimberly Brown Theme: Intention Artwork: Kaumari; Nepal; 17th or 18th century; gilt copper alloy with semiprecious stone inlays; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; C2006.44.1Learn 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 Chodron. Every Thursday, we offer a meditation session at New York Inside Meditation Center that draws inspiration from an artwork from the Rubens Collection and is led by a prominent meditation teacher. This podcast is a recording of our weekly in-person practice. The description of each episode includes information about the theme for that week's session and an image of the related artwork. Our Mindfulness Meditation Podcast is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the New York Inside Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project and Parabola Magazine and supported by the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American

Buddhism. And now, please enjoy your practice. Hello everybody, good afternoon and Tashi Delek. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program at New York Insight Meditation Center. I am Tashi Chodron, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador, and I'm delighted to be your host today. The Rubin is a global hub for Himalayan art, and we are 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 look at work of art. We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, Kimberly Brown, 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 Kumari, origin Nepal, dated later 17th to early 18th centuryilded copper alloy with semi-precious stones inlays.

It's about 15.5 x 10.5 x 4 inches. A beautiful sculpture. The connection to the theme, the theme for the month of January is setting intention. The goddess Kumari's intention to protect her devotees is evident from her posture. The sculpture from the Kathmandu Valley depicts the goddess Kumari, who is known for assisting Durga in her fight with a demon. Kumari is portrayed as youthful and full of vigor. She stands in an agile position, making ready to leap into action. Kumari is

sprinkling libations from a cup, which signifies bestowing blessings. This sculpture is a remarkable example of repose, a technique in which three-dimensional forms are hammered from a flat sheet of copper. Along with Las Vegas casting, it is one of the two metalworking techniques for which Newari craftsmen are famous. As we gaze upon Kumari, let's recommit to acting with greater intention and conscious awareness. Now let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher is Kimberly Brown. Kimberly Brown is a meditation teacher and author. She leads classes and retreats that emphasize the power of compassion and kindness meditation to reconnect us to ourselves and others. She studies in both the Tibetan and

inside schools of Buddhism and is a certified mindfulness instructor. Her latest book, Happy Relationships, 25 Buddhist Practices to Transform Your Connection with Your Partner, Family and Friends was released in February. You can learn more about Kimberly on her website, meditationwithheart.com. Kimberly, thank you so much for being here, and please help me in welcoming Kimberly Brown. Today at the Ruben, we're talking about intention. And if you've spent any time with Buddhists or studying Buddhism, you'll know that we talk a lot about it. It's considered a really important and valuable discipline.

But if you haven't, you might have grown up believing that intention isn't valuable at all. In the U.S. at least, it's really action that is most important and most prized. And I grew up hearing a saying that is, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. paved with good intentions. And what that means is, whatever, if you have a bad outcome, it doesn't matter what you wanted to happen. It just matters that what happened was negative. Now, from a Buddhist view, we don't believe this. First of all, if you have a clear and beneficial intention, and it's really true, and you give someone a gift because you want them to enjoy it, and they don't like it, the outcome doesn't really matter. What matters is that you had a true intention that was toward the good,

and that's meaningful. And also, it's true that when an intention is unexamined and uncultivated, it isn't very meaningful. Then the intention doesn't, it doesn't have any power, right? Doesn't have the power to guide us. And so it's only when we develop and we strengthen and we really get in touch with our true intentions that we can then use it as a directive force to lead all of our actions, our thoughts, our words, our communications, and our deeds towards what's important to us, towards what's beneficial and away from anything that causes harm. And intention isn't really, you know, it's not mysterious or complicated. It's our underlying motivation.

And it's something that happens before we do something, before we decide that, or before we even, you know, take the action. So for example, you have an intention before you start cooking dinner for your family. Okay. There's a reason you're doing it. There's something that motivates you. And if your intention is unwise, it might be because you feel obligated to do this, to cook this dinner. And the outcome might be that you resent doing it. you resent doing it. But if you choose to clarify your intention and really get in touch why you cook dinner for your family or for yourself, you might be able to connect with the realization that you're doing it because you care for yourself and these people.

And when you get in touch with such a true intention, it makes it a lot easier to appreciate your efforts and the task. So today we'll do a brief intention setting exercise. And it will help you to connect with your wholesomeness, your skillful, wise, your compassionate heart. And it will help you deepen these motivations, these aspirations to cause no harm and to benefit yourself and others. To cause no harm and to benefit yourself and others. So go ahead and close your eyes. Just notice what happens when you close your eyes.

It's likely your attention quickly goes into a thought, a plan, a memory, what you have to do later. If you're in physical pain, it very likely goes right to that pain. So choosing to bring your attention to the sounds entering your ears, just allowing yourself to receive them. Notice how you can move your attention from these different objects, objects like thought or planning or complaining or worry, and bring it just to your ears and let the sound enter there. It's developing a receptivity. You don't have to go out and do anything.

You can just be just for a moment. I'll be quiet. Allow the sound to come to you. And you might hear silence. Allow the silence to come. Thank you. And choosing to place one hand on your belly. And just breathing into your hand. Noticing how you can breathe all the way down, expanding your abdomen. And your hand will feel that. And exhaling fully, and your hand will feel that too.

Just leave that hand here on your belly to steady yourself and ground yourself. As you place your other hand on your heart. And I'd like you to call up your deepest So you're allowing it to arise. It's unlikely you have to kind of figure this out or intellectualize. With your hand on your heart and on your belly, allow it to arise from within you. And take a moment here to, you might sense a feeling, you might sense an emotion, a sensation, an image might come to you. See if you can connect with what arises and clarify, clarify this intention, this motivation, this aspiration. Thank you. And keeping this intention close to you, I would like you to imagine in front of your forehead,

now with your eyes closed, your eyes are closed through this, imagine in front of your forehead, eyes closed, your eyes are closed through this, imagine in front of your forehead, visualize a blank blue rectangular screen, the screen of the mind, like a big movie screen that you can see at your third eye in your forehead. third eye in your forehead. So imagining this big screen. And now, in your own handwriting, write your intention in bright, glowing white ink on the screen. You can imagine your hand touching the screen. You can imagine suddenly your handwriting appears on the screen

and you see your intention clearly. While you're writing this or looking at it, get a sense of your intention. Feel it with your intention, as you visualize this handwriting, as you're watching this screen, you'll notice now that this bright handwriting, this bright light, it is beginning to dissolve. And the handwriting is all coming together into a bright bead of light. So you'll see your handwriting, you'll see your intention, and then slowly it comes together and forms this bright white drop of light. white drop of light. And allowing this drop of light to enter through your forehead

into the middle of your head. And it's almost like liquid. It's bright and it's warm. And it slowly begins to travel down from the middle of your brain right through the center of your body, you know, through your spinal cord. So slowly from the top of your head here, down past your ears, through your throat, down into your heart center, to above your navel, into your belly, into your abdomen. And then when it reaches your root, your perineum, it splashes.

I sometimes hear like a ting. And it releases a golden pinkish mist. And this mist begins to travel down and around your legs, up and around your torso, your arms, your head. And now you are surrounded by your intention manifest as a golden pinkish mist. It's a little bit cool. It's surrounding your entire body. You can allow yourself to visualize and experience this mist all just a minute. Resting here in this mist for just a minute. Thank you. And And feeling and sensing and seeing this golden pinkish mist fog. And just noticing it's beginning to dissipate, to dissolve. It will naturally do so.

dissipate, to dissolve. It will naturally do so. And knowing now that your intention has been deeply rooted into your mind and your body and your heart, you can connect with it and strengthen it whenever you like. I encourage you to, at least once a day, call up your intention. Say it to yourself three times. Go through this visualization where you see it on the screen, where you allow it to become a light visualization, keeping your hand on your heart and on your

belly, just noticing that you're breathing. And before we conclude this practice, I would like you to rejoice. Rejoice in your motivation, in your intention. Sankalpa is the word for it in Sanskrit. Thanking yourself and appreciating that it's rare to really get in touch with your motivation and to develop it. And it's very special and valuable. So thanking yourself, you might say that out loud. I thank you for practicing with me today. Many blessings to all of you as we conclude this meditation. You can open your eyes, you can stretch, you can move.

Alternately, if you'd like, you can continue practicing. Thank you for being here today. That concludes this week's practice. To support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a friend of the Rubin at rubinmuseum.org slash friends. If you are looking for more inspiring content, please check out our other podcast, Awaken, which uses art to explore the dynamic paths to enlightenment and what it means to wake up. Season four, hosted by Isabella Rossellini, delves into the Buddhist concept of attachment and explores how the practice of letting go can transform our experience of the world. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

And to learn more about the Rubin Museum's work around the world, visit rubinmuseum.org. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day. you