Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Lama Aria Drolma 03/16/2023

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Theme: Unity Artwork: Buddha Shakyamuni; Tibet; 13th century; gilt copper alloy with pigment; Rubin Museum of ArtTeacher: Lama Aria Drolma  http://therubin.org/36iThe Rubin Museum presents a weekly online meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area, with each session focusing on a specific work of art. This podcast is a recording of the live online session and includes an opening talk and 20-minute sitting session. The guided meditation begins at 12:03.  This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine.  To attend a Mindfulness Meditation online session in the future or learn more, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation.  If you would like to support the Rubin Museum and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member and always attend for free.  Have a mindful day!

Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast presented by the Rubin Museum of Art. We are a museum in Chelsea, New York City that connects visitors to the art and ideas of the Himalayas and serves as a space for reflection and personal transformation. I'm your host, Tashi Chodron. Every Thursday, we present a meditation session inspired by a different artwork from the Rubin Museum's collection and led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area. This podcast is a recording of our weekly in-person practice. In the description for each episode, you will find information about the theme for that week's session, including 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. Tashi Delek, and good afternoon. Welcome, welcome to the return of Mindfulness Meditation with Rubin Museum of Art. My name is Tashi Chodron, Programs and Communities Ambassador.

I'm so happy to be your host today. Where is the spring? I thought it was nice and warm one week ago, and now we are all like... So those of you who are first time, we are a Museum of Himalayan Art and Ideas in New York City, and we're so glad to have all of you join us for this weekly program where we combine art and meditation. Inspired from our collection, we will take a look at work of art from our collection. We will hear a brief talk from our teacher, and it's so great to have Lama Arya Doma back in person. Thank you so much. And then we will have a short sit, about 15 to 20 minutes, for the meditation guided by her.

And let's take a look at today's art. So we are still exploring on the theme of unity, and the art connection that we have chosen today that is handpicked by our teacher is this beautiful image sculpture of Shakyamuni Buddha. So this is a 13th century sculpture from Tibet, about 13 and a quarter into 10. And so this is the Shakyamuni Buddha, who's often referred to as the historical Buddha. The Buddha basically means the awakened one, right? And someone who appeared about 2600 years ago as a human, just like us, and passed away about 81 years after that, who reached enlightenment or awaken. And some of the major and minor characteristics of Buddha is the protuberant, the cranial here, and layward seems to often refer to as the wisdom bump,

and then the elongated earlobes here, and then the monk's robe that the Buddha is wearing. And one of the major characteristics of Buddha is this earth-touching gesture. Left hand, an open meditation gesture. Right hand, palm facing the knees, fingers pointing towards the earth. This particular gesture is called earth-touching gesture. When Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree in India and reached the awakened or enlightened moment, he calls the earth to bear witness to that awakened moment.

And let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher today is Lama Arya Doma. Lama Arya Doma is an ordained Buddhist teacher in the Karmakaju tradition of Tibetan Buddhism who has completed over a decade of monastic study and meditation training. She also graduated from a solitary three years, three months retreat as well. And Lama Arya Doma emphasizes Vajrayana Buddhism and Buddhist principles, making them relevant in our everyday lives, helping us to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion, and bringing about a transformation of contentment and a genuine sense of well-being. Please welcome Lama Arya Doma. Thank you.

Hello everybody, welcome, thank you all for coming in today. I'm absolutely so delighted to be here. It's been so long, we haven't seen each other and there's nothing like being in person and gathering today in this beautiful place. And I want to thank Ruben Museum for making this happen. And thank you, Tashi, for the lovely introduction. So I chose the image today of Buddha Shakyamuni for a very important reason. And the reason is it also also the theme today is unity. So how does Buddha Shakyamuni connects to the theme of unity? So Buddha Shakyamuni when you see the Buddha

obviously his hand is in the earth touching gesture and unity being when we see Shakyamuni's statue, it represents Buddha's enlightened nature. So it represents Buddha became enlightened. And how does it connect with unity? It connects with unity because in the Buddhist tradition, unity is referred to as interconnectedness, interdependent. So that's what unity is referred to. And how does the Buddha statue connects with unity, it connects with unity because all of us have that Buddha nature within us. We are all divine beings having human experiences. So that is the connection, that is the unity that all of us have within us. We have this pristine Buddha nature, We have this pristine Buddha nature, this pristine divine nature. We are absolutely goodness inside. And all we have to do, no matter who we are today, no matter what we have done,

no matter what our thoughts and minds and everything represents, deep down, you your pristine goodness and that is what the unity of all of us connects and all we have to do is discover that and one of the ways we discover that is through meditation and what is beautiful about the path of Buddhism or what Shakyamuni taught us, he taught us the path. He didn't just say, okay, we all, Buddha by nature, and we all can be enlightened. But he said, here is the path. And that's one of the reasons that I did a three and a half year retreat practice in the monastery. It is a solitary, not solitary, but cloistered. It's once you go into the retreat, you only come out of after three years and three months and three days.

And there we study the nature of our mind. study the nature of our mind, we study advanced meditation, because we really want to understand what Buddha meant, that you all have that Buddha nature, and how we can have that experience of pristine awareness that we all have within us. At this moment, you know, we have a mind that is like a monkey mind that jumps from one thought to another. And every thought that comes out has emotions. And what we don't understand is we can let go of that thought. We don't understand that. And the thought becomes a story. So if you have a troubling thought, the thought keeps on looping and making big stories about it. So coming back to unity, most of us, you know, we think that we are individuals, we are having individual experiences. This is because of our ego. We think, oh, I came here today to Rubin Museum to

listen to the teachings and meditate. But in reality, there's so many aspects and so many people together brought you here. If you came by train, there was this whole system of, you know, all the people that took to ride the train right here. So how else are we connected? How else are we united? We are not having individual experiences as we think. We are not isolated individuals. You know, most of us in the Western world, we think, oh, you know, I'm an independent person. In reality, we are really interconnected and interdependent. And one of the ways to understand this interconnectedness and interdependent is the air we breathe. You know, all of us, in fact, probably in the same room we're breathing the same air and that's how we are interconnected if anything has to go wrong with the air

of course we'll all face the same consequences and then we are connected by this earth gravity we're all walking and you know the funny thing about gravity is all of us think that we are you know if somebody was to look up from space to earth we're all on the top of the earth but we don't know what side we are you know so earth connects us with gravity so we are not individuals as we think we are. We are connected to a whole large energy field. And what about water? So water nourishes us. What about the sun?

So we're connected. All of us are connected, united, you know, because of the sun's energy that we all, you know, there's plants, there's food that we can nourish ourselves. So the earth, the water, the air, everything connects us. So we are interconnected, interdependent, and that's what unity means. We're all joined together. That's what unity means. We're all joined together. Now, this is really very important to understand, the importance of this interconnectedness, interdependentness. Because when you have a thought process and when you make an action,

it affects all other people. And we are also interconnected through prayers, through meditation. So all of us, we are interconnected here. Why? We've all come with a very good intention to meditate, to come and listen to some good teachings, to take back home some goodness, good teachings to take back home some goodness for goodness in our heart for unity among us so we have to be really really cautious what we say our actions and because you know today that that energy affects all of us. So now we'll start the meditation because prayer and meditation connects us. And there's different forms of meditation

and there are different ways teachers teach meditation. And that's all is fine. You know, all types of meditation is good. So when I teach meditation and that's all is fine. You know, all types of meditation is good. So when I teach meditation, I'm bringing you the teachings, what I learned in the monastery. And these are direct teachings of the Buddha, how we meditate in the monastery. I still live in the monastery.

It's an hour and 20 minutes from here. It's a beautiful monastery, a Buddhist monastery. I still live in the monastery. It's an hour and 20 minutes from here. It's a beautiful monastery, a Buddhist monastery. So I'm going to give you teachings of meditation, what I've learned from there. So we give a lot of importance to the posture. There are two essential points. One is your body posture and second is your mind because these are the two essential points of meditation. So regarding the posture, when you sit down, since you're all sitting in the chair, keep your legs parallel to the floor. And your hands can rest on your knees. rest on your knees. And most often we lean away from the backrest because we can, and if you feel comfortable and you want to lean on the backrest, that's totally fine. The most important thing is you be comfortable. So you can put your hands on the knees like this or you can put it right hand over your left hand like this.

This is often you see Buddha statue in this form. And then bring your mind to the present moment. The reason is because sometimes we may be here sitting, but our mind may still be in the office or be at home. But so we are bringing our mind's attention to the present moment. And how do we do that? By putting the mind's attention on our breath. That's one of the easiest way to bring your mind's attention on the present moment. So all you have to do is, this will be a guided meditation for 15-20 minutes, and all you have to do is sit comfortably,

be relaxed, and just to center ourselves, we will start with first three breaths and I'll show you how. So when we do the first breath. Just breathe out all your worries. And the second breath. Inhale deeply. And exhale. And now the third breath. Inhale deeply. Breathe out all your worries and tension and absolutely relax. And now, very importantly, we will breathe as normal as we can and at your own rhythm, at your own pace. So inhale and exhale.

And as you exhale, just let your breath fill this entire space in front of you. And just rest in that present moment of awareness and we will sit like this for a short while. Inhale and exhale. Breathe normally. And as you exhale, let your breath fill this entire space in front of you and just rest in that present moment of awareness. You can keep your eyes closed or lower your gaze in front of you, whatever is comfortable. If you came in with a lot of tension in your mind, just say, you're okay right now. And if your mind has wandered off in some thoughts,

just say, thinking, let it go, don't follow the story, come back to your mind's attention, observing your breath, going in and out at your own rhythm. Thank you. Again, remember to breathe in and breathe out, putting your mind's attention on your breath. Just observe your breath. Inhale and exhale and as you exhale let your breath permeate in front of you and rest in that present moment of awareness. Yes. The moment you catch yourself thinking, just say thinking, let go, and come back again to you. Inhale and exhale, bringing your mind's attention on your breath. Thank you. If you've fallen asleep, just wake up gently. This is the time to meditate, to give your mind some peace

and feel calmness and tranquility. So again, just sit up a little straight, keep your eyes closed, or your gaze down and bring your mind's attention to your breath. Just breathe in and breathe out normally at your own rhythm and pace. Don't try to stop your thoughts. Don't try to stop your thoughts. It's okay if the thoughts come and go. But the minute you catch yourself thinking while you meditate, just say, thinking, let go of that thought and bring your mind's attention to your breath. Inhale and exhale. And when you feel you have completely relaxed,

just bring your mind's attention to the center of your forehead and just let go and rest in that present moment of awareness. Inhale and exhale. Inhale, bring your mind's attention and observe your breath and let go of all your worries and feel completely relaxed Okay, relax now. And stretch a little bit. Okay, relax now. And stretch a little bit. And you did a fabulous job. And I want you to take home something with you all. I know the world is crazy and we are in it. But you can put that intention out.

We have to live intentionally. And what you can do is if you're right-handed, take your right hand and just pat yourself like this and say, I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm joyful. Every time your thoughts go off into some worrying aspect, you know, you feel not calm, you feel scared or you feel you're having some kind of anxiousness. This is a reminder. You can always take your hand like this and just say,

I'm healthy healthy I'm happy I'm joyful and this is how I wake up every morning and then you can add more things I'm healthy I'm happy I'm joyful I'm beautiful

and again I'm healthy I'm happy I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm joyful, I am divine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for that beautiful session, Lama Arya. That concludes this week's practice. To support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member at rubinmuseum.org membership.

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 2, hosted by Raveena Arora, is out now and explores the transformative power of emotions using a mandala as a guide. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. And to stay up to date with the Rubin Museum's virtual and in-person offerings, sign up for a monthly newsletter at rubinmuseum.org slash enews. I am Tashi Chodron.

Thank you so much for listening. Have a mindful day.