Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Lama Aria Drolma 08/03/2020

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Theme: Awakening Artwork: Lotus Mandala of Amitayus Central Tibet;[http://therubin.org/2-7] Teacher: Lama Aria Drolma The 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 19:46. 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, Dawn Eshelman. Every Monday, 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 practice currently held virtually. 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 Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. And now, please enjoy your practice. Welcome. Welcome everybody to Mindfulness Meditation Online with the Rubin Museum of Art. My name is Dawn Eshelman and the Rubin Museum is a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City. And here on our fifth anniversary of this program, we are coming to you live online. It's great to be here with you to practice together and to combine art and meditation. And it is great to have so many of you joining. And I'd like to welcome all of you, our regulars. Hello, welcome back and to people

joining us for the first time. So great to have you here and of course everybody in between and welcome to those listening to our free weekly podcast. I'm hopeful that this setting allows some of our regular podcast listeners to actually join us here on Zoom, which is pretty cool. So really great to be here with all of you. And we are delighted to have as our teacher today, Lama Arya Droma, who we will introduce and bring on in just a moment. So for today's session, we will look at a work of art from our collection. We will hear a brief talk from our teacher, and then we'll have a short sit, about 15 to 20 minutes. My goodness, a lot has happened in the world around us and in our own lives since we last met in person.

That was early March. And there's still a lot going on. I hope you are well. And throughout all of this, I hope that your meditation practice has been there for you in one way or another, even if that just means that you remembered now and then to take a deep breath. And while there is nothing like practicing in person and physically feeling each other's presences, I think that there are a lot of actually really special benefits to practicing this way virtually on Zoom together. And I just wanted to appreciate

some of those right now with you. So no line at the door, right? You don't have to worry about getting a ticket. And really a lot more of us can join in than can make it all the way to Chelsea at one o'clock on a Monday. So this is really great to be able to welcome so many other folks, and maybe people from different corners of the world. And I would love to hear if there are people here from different places, just no matter where you are, let us know where you're joining from. We'd love to know that. And for this month, we are bringing this program to you absolutely free for the month of August. This is a great opportunity

to really build our community here. And thereafter, we will continue to be free to our members. That is our promise to you and we are keeping it. So it's great to be back together. If you have been connected to the Rubin over the last month or so, you will know that we are in the midst of a participatory project called the Lotus Effect, which invites people to fold a lotus out of paper in honor of someone. And I'll tell you about it a little more later on. But this month in mindfulness meditation, we are taking our inspiration from that project.

And we're thinking about the symbolism of the lotus and what it means to us right now in this moment. And what it means in the beautiful Buddhist and Hindu art in our collection. And we're talking about one of the ideas the lotus represents this month, and it's called awakening. So let's take a look at a work of art. So in a second here, we will see a sculpture of a lotus made of metal, the petals of which can actually open and close into a bud.

And in the center is the figure of Amitayus or Amitabha, the Buddha of long life or infinite life, who we recognize by the vase that he holds in his lap, which is a symbol of longevity, containing the nectar of immortality. And here, seated at the center of the lotus, he also represents the power of pure awareness found within. So lotuses, as you may know, like this one, grow in muddy, murky waters. They rise to the surface and they unfold and they bloom untainted by the muck at the bottom. In fact, they're nourished by it. They take nourishment from it.

And they serve as a reminder, even a temporary, impermanent reminder that moments of beauty can emerge from even the toughest conditions. So in Tibetan Buddhism, this sacred symbol is associated with spiritual awakening or enlightenment. And from a secular point of view, this idea of awakening can be equally as powerful, not only in our personal lives, but particularly considering what we're grappling with as a global community. So you might consider as you look at this lotus today, what you have woken up to in your life recently, in spite of a difficulty or maybe because of a challenging moment, what

have you become more awake about? We'll take a more in-depth look at this artwork at the end of the program, but now I would love to bring on our teacher today, Lama Aryadroma. Let's bring her on. Hello. Hello. It's so great to see you. Oh, thank you so much, and it's wonderful to be here with you, Lama Aryadroma. I'm just going to introduce you briefly and then I'll turn it over to you. Okay. Thank you. Yes, surely. Great.

Thank you so much for being here, Lama Arya Droma. Lama Arya Droma is a formerly authorized Buddhist teacher trained in the Karmakagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. And she has over a decade of monastic study and meditation training and is a graduate of a three-year, three-month traditional Tibetan Buddhist retreat at Palpang Thubten Choling Monastery in New York, where she trained extensively in the Dharma Path Program of mindfulness and contemplations. She teaches Vajrayana Buddhism and Buddhist principles contemplations. She teaches Vajrayana Buddhism and Buddhist principles worldwide. Lama Arya Drona, it is so nice to see you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Dawn, for the lovely introduction. Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining me for today's online mindfulness meditation session at Ruben. I'm so happy to be invited by Ruben on this virtual platform because I really miss y'all in person when I used to come and do the live

mindfulness meditation sessions. And it's wonderful that all of us can come together and connect, that all of us can come together and connect, connect again. I'm so happy to be here. And before I go further, Dawn mentioned the Lotus Effect, the project that's going on at the Rubin Museum. And I have done, folded my origami lotus here and I'll be sending this to the museum so it'll be physically installed at the museum so this is my lotus if any of y'all want to still go and participate there's a wonderful small clip where it's so well done how to fold the lotus

so that's going to be going to the Rubin Museum. I'll be mailing it and I so much enjoyed doing it. So this month's theme is awakening and the art selection. This month is the beautiful lotus sculpture and the theme awakening and the symbol lotus cannot be more apt to our current situation there's no doubt we all have been awoke with everything that's going around the world the lotus is a sacred symbol of awakening the buddha is often depicted sitting on a lotus flower symbolizing the one who overcame all the suffering and challenges in the material world and became enlightened just like the lotus flower which grows in the dirty and murky waters but emerges as perfectly clean and beautiful flower.

Because of its unique transformation, the lotus is regarded as a sacred symbol of awakening, purity, transformation and compassion. In Buddhism, the journey of lotus is said to mirror our own spiritual journey. lotus is said to mirror our own spiritual journey. Our being starts out like a lotus bud, tightly closed and buried in the deep, muddy, dark waters, which is an analogy for samsara and this ordinary human life's experiences with so many challenges. It's only by living through positive actions like developing compassion, loving kindness, and wisdom, we can transform ourselves by cultivating positive Buddhist virtues such as such as again loving kindness and compassion we can let go of our attachment to a small ego self and we can open our hearts wish to our interconnectedness

of life and we can open our hearts to others, wishing them happiness as much as we desire happiness ourselves. Our interconnectedness with all forms of life is the single aspect that we all have. That is that we all want to be happy and we don't want suffering. So from this tiniest ant to us human beings, the single most important aspect that connects us all is that we don't want suffering. We want happiness.

And in pursuit of happiness, we do a lot of harm and also good. According, the lotus flower is symbolic because it can offer hope, strength to people struggling in our daily lives. It's a symbol that shows no matter where you start off in your life, no matter what you're going through, you have the ability to rise above, overcome all the negativity and emerge from your struggles. And that is the lotus, why it's so beautiful and it's symbolic of that, all those natures. And during this current challenging times, we can hope, just like the lotus, we can bloom with all our struggles and challenges. The Buddhist insight was that our lives are a challenge, that our lives are struggles. that our lives are struggles. Life is challenging for everyone. All of our lives circumstances are fragile and subject to change. We can clearly see what's happening today and all then the entire world has changed and everyone

has been affected by this pandemic. But how do we deal with the situation? We deal with difficult situations by transforming our own minds, attitudes, and behavior. We can use this opportunity to transform ourselves, our attitudes and behavior, and transform our minds that causes all the suffering. So how do we deal with our minds? There's a wonderful quote by His Holiness Dalai Lama. And he goes on to say, the best way to have inner calmness, inner peace and inner happiness is to be warm hearted. And to have a compassionate heart for a meaningful life. For one's own inner happiness, inner calmness, and also to have day-to-day happiness,

developing a compassionate heart is the key factor. And this is what His Holiness Dalai Lama quotes. So how do we cultivate a compassionate and loving kindness? We just need to train our minds to shift our attention from negative thoughts to positive thoughts. It's that simple. And it's a learned skill. It's just like playing the piano. Every time you practice it, you become better and better.

No. Every time you practice it, you become better and better. Whatever difficulties you may have at this moment, remember you are always free in this very moment to set the direction of your thoughts and your reaction. You can offer the best of yourself in any circumstances, including in difficult times. And this is the human will. We have a choice how to respond. We can respond with fear, anxiety, stress, hatred, and ignorance. This only brings more suffering. Or we can choose to respond with generosity, loving kindness and compassion. And this is the time to choose compassion, loving kindness, patience to oneself and to others. And it's as simple as breathing and putting the intention of loving kindness and compassion. So today's guided meditation will be the practice of loving kindness and compassion. The practice is called Tongling Meditation.

In Tibetan, the word Tongling literally in the pain and suffering and others and practice comes from a great buddhist teacher indian buddhist teacher called atisha from the he wrote the seven points of mind training in 982 c so it comes the origin is very far far back but it's still practiced all of us in the monastery all the monks all the nuns all the realized buddhist teachers you see practice this loving kindness and compassion which is known as tongling in the tibetan buddhist in tibetan buddhism we normally react to pain and fear by trying to avoid it or distance ourself we try to move towards the pleasant the pleasurable and things and people that we bring comfort

tongling meditation helps us move towards the discomfort and suffering which we tend to avoid It also opens up to the reality that our personal pain and suffering isn't just ours The pain and suffering is experienced by all the humans across the entire globe so Tonglen meditation practices that to cultivate love and compassion and the ability to be present for your own suffering and the suffering of others so how do we practice Tonglen meditation it's extremely simple and this here are the instructions, you know, at some point or the other, we have experienced unconditional love, a friend, and we've wanted absolute happiness for them. So when we start the meditation,

here's some visualization techniques. Imagine someone close to you that you want to help, who's perhaps not well or in pain. It could be a child, it could be a mother, a father, a grandfather, or a friend, someone close to you. So as you breathe in, just feel their suffering. And as you breathe out from your heart center, in the form of a brilliant white light, send out all your joy, peace, happiness to them and see it touches all of them and all the beings are filled with happiness and joy. It's this simple.

So visualize someone whom you really want to help, whom you love and you wish happiness for them, bring it to your mind stream. And as you you breathe out wishing them in a form of a brilliant white light it touches all of them and see them filled with happiness and joy and loving kindness and compassion and this also includes oneself very important it includes yourself it's like like the Sun coming out as the bright radiant light from your heart center healing and purifying oneself totally raising every negative joy wisdom and happiness from your heart as a light towards all beings and it touches them and they all filled with happiness and joy so let's start the meditation so when you start the meditation I'll give

you meditation I'll give you a guided meditation so when we start the meditation there are actually two essential points the first essential point is your body posture so So it's good to sit upright and you can keep your gaze just a little bit lower. And if you feel comfortable, you want to close your eyes, that's fine as well. So the second essential point is your mind and it's the mind that does the meditation. So the mind needs an anchor. It needs a focus. And why?

Because the mind jumps from one thought to the other. It's like the monkey mind jumping from one thought to the other. So the mind needs a focus. And the focus will be our breath. Just put your attention breathing in and breathing out. put your attention breathing in and breathing out and then also bring to your mind stream the feeling of loving kindness and compassion. So sit upright and I will do the guided meditation. So let's put our mind's attention on a breath, feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out, breathing normally, letting you breathe according to your own regulation. Don't change anything. Let it

flow naturally and easily with its own rhythm and pace. And as you breathe in, bring to your mind the feeling of suffering of others. And as you breathe out, bring to your mind's attention the feeling of unconditional love and kindness into your mind stream. of unconditional love and kindness into your mind stream. And just imagine you're sending pure loving kindness and compassion in the form of brilliant white light goes out into the direction of all the direction and all the beings are filled with happiness and joy, and all the beings are filled with happiness and joy, including yourself,

and just rest in that present moment of awareness. Let's do this. Thank you. Again, inhale and exhale. Breathe normally according to your own pace and rhythm. As you breathe in, bring to your mind the feeling of suffering of others. And as you breathe out, it transforms from your heart and in a form of white light bring to your mind's attention the feeling of unconditional love and compassion into your mind stream and see the see it for fill the entire universe or wherever you can visualize to the person whom you care or to all the people and just see that the light goes out in all directions and all the beings are filled with happiness and joy including yourself and rest in that present moment of awareness. Thank you. Thank you. When you notice thoughts coming into your mind, don't block them.

Just gently say, thinking, and let go of your thoughts and come back to your breath, putting your mind's attention, breathing in and breathing out. So the whole point is we never block our thoughts. We watch the thoughts come in and go. And when you notice it, just say thinking, let go. And because we're meditating at this moment, bring your mind's attention to the breath. It goes in and follow the attention as it goes out. And as it goes out, visualize that from your heart center, a brilliant form of light bringing to your mind stream, loving kindness and compassion goes out in all directions and see every being is happy and joyous, including yourself, and rest in that present moment of awareness. Thank you. Again, watch out for your thoughts.

Again, watch out for your thoughts. The minute you notice your thoughts, just say thinking, let them go gently and bring your mind's attention back to your breath. Inhale and you can take a shot. Let the breath, keep the breath in for a short second and then breathe out. And again, continue doing it as you breathe out. Imagine you're sending out loving in the form of pure brilliant light from your heart center and it goes out in all direction

and the feeling of loving kindness and compassion and rest in that present moment of awareness. Your thoughts are like the clouds and your mind is imagined, visualize it as a huge space itself. The clouds come in and go out and that's your thoughts. And you can bring your attention back to your breath

and start doing the loving kindness and compassion meditation. you can do the tonguing meditation this meditation for one minute two minutes and then you can extend it to five minutes whatever time you feel comfortable and you can do this anywhere anywhere when you feel anxiousness anger scared you can do this meditation it's just breathing in and breathing out and I'll give you again the technique as you breathe in bring to your mind the feeling of suffering of others and as you breathe out bring to your mind's attention the feeling of unconditional love and kindness. And imagine that you're sending out this pure loving kindness and compassion in the form of a brilliant light from your heart center in all directions and all the beings are filled with happiness and joy, including yourself and just rest in that present moment of awareness.

Tongling is one of the bravest practice that one can do. The practice is very beneficial and has helped people deal with their fears and suffering or when they're dying and loss and has given them real strength and courage. This is one of the greatest meditation jewels that offers a way for us to cultivate our own compassionate nature, bringing about positive energy to ourselves. And this is a true innate nature. All right, everybody, that is all the time that we have today. So thank you so much for joining us. And we'll see you next week. Take care and be well. Bye-bye.

Thank you, Lama Aridroma. That concludes this week's practice. If you would like to support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member of the Ruben. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.