Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Lama Aria Drolma 10/04/2021

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Theme: Mandala Artwork: Mandala of Chandra; Nepal; ca. 1500; pigments on cloth; paintings; Rubin Museum of Art; gift of Shelly and Donald Rubin; [http://therubin.org/32o] Teacher: Sharon Salzberg 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 16:50. 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. Hello everyone. Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online with the Rubin Museum of Art. I'm Dawn Eshelman. Great to be here with you. And we are a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City. So glad to have you all joining us for our weekly program where we combine meditation and art online. So come to the museum. We are free on every Friday from 6 to 10 and open Thursday through Sunday. And this month we are talking all about the mandala, what a mandala is, how it's a visual tool for navigating our inner landscape, and that it's something that Buddhist practitioners, particularly Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, utilize in very specific ways. So we're just

looking at mandalas in our practice this month and taking inspiration from them for a broader mindfulness practice. But in a traditional Tibetan Buddhist approach there would be some mandalas that are utilized as actual objects of focus and transformation in a meditation setting and other ritual settings so yeah so we're excited to dive into this world of mandalas and we'll look again together at this beautiful piece this is mandalaala of Chandra. This is from Nepal, circa 1500s, pigments on cloth. And Chandra is the central figure here. And Chandra is the god of the moon and is known throughout all religious traditions in India. The mandala primarily belongs, this one, to the Noor Buddhist religion of Nepal. And stylistically, we can tell that it is Nepali.

And often it's hard to distinguish sometimes between art from Nepal and Tibet. And there's obviously a lot of overlap. But there are some features that are very characteristically Nepalese, including this depiction of ritual action and veneration, which is most seen here at the bottom. Then also the alternating use of background colors, so this kind of ochre and red, ochre and red. Chandra, the white moon god, holds the stocks of two white lotuses in his hands. He is flanked by two female archers who shoot arrows of light to drive away the darkness. And he is on two lotuses and rides a chariot pulled by seven geese. See the geese right here at the bottom? And so this is kind of a parallel to the sun god Surya, whose chariot is pulled by seven geese. See the geese right here at the bottom? And so this is kind of a parallel to the sun god Surya whose chariot is pulled by horses. And

all of these circles here represent some different elements. The outer circle, well we have first the eight planets here that are represented, and then we have the 16 moons that are represented here. and the outer circle is a group of 28 constellations that correspond to classes So you can see that this mandala in particular welcomes us into an entire universe of Iconography and in many ways that's what mandalas are they are a universe unto themselves so delighted that lama aria droma is here with us she is an ordained buddhist teacher trained in the karmakagu and shankpakagu traditions of tibetan buddhism with over a decade of monastic study and training

she was born in india and in her early years, she practiced Hindu traditions, and later she studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism. So she's a graduate of the traditional three years, three months Tibetan Buddhist retreat, which is an advanced cloistered meditation training program at Phalpong Thubten Choling Monastery in upstate New York. And she's studied and trained extensively in the Dharma Path program of mindfulness and contemplation. And there's some fun updates from Lama Arya Droma. She was just featured in the July issue of Vogue

India talking about her life purpose. And she'll be speaking at the Parliament of the World's Religions on October 18th, all about compassion. So great to have you back, Lama Arya Droma. Join us. Hi. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome. I'm so happy to be here with you all today and thank you all for joining in. I want to thank Dawn for the kind introduction and so happy that y'all have opened up. I miss the Rubin Museum so very much and so happy to be here today to have this mindful meditation session. Welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining in today. Welcome everyone. Thank you all for joining in today. So the theme today is mandalas. And so what is the meaning of mandala? The word mandala comes from a Sanskrit word.

It means circle. Mandalas are highly complex and artistic paintings dep debating the cosmological traditions of Hindu and Tibetan tradition. Since it's mostly circular in design, the idea is that life is never ending and everything is connected. So, but it's not always that you see circular, it can be square, it can be many different types of mandalas. There are different forms of mandalas, some are ritualistic, some are complex paintings, some are structures, some are symbolic hand gestures done through, you know, during our advanced meditation practices. And these hand gestures are done to bring about profound transformation during our practices. For example, this is a beautiful hand gesture. It's a mandala. This means as when we practice our chanting prayers or our advanced meditation practices, we offer this as a universe. You know, we have tendencies to hold on so many things and we can visualizedly offer this to our protectors, to the deities the angels to protect us to keep us in this path

of enlightenment and so this is a beautiful hand gesture of offering this means you're offering the universe so that you know as the more you can offer it's a form of generosity. And so this is practiced all the time when we chant. And generosity is one of the most important practices as a Buddhist practitioner. So that's the mandala of the universe I'm offering to the deities to benefit me and all the sentient beings. So most of us have seen the sand mandalas perhaps in the movies or you know the Tibetan monks you know so beautifully artistically creating these sand mandalas probably in person or probably even in the movies and they're so, they represent the universe and a sand mandala is often destroyed after completion. Most often it is absolutely destroyed and the reason being is to show that all nature, everything that's beautiful, everything in this world is just transient.

So they destroy it very symbolically and they put the sand in the water, so there's blessings there. It is because the mandala is destroyed because to emphasize the transient nature of the whole universe. And the impermanence, it represents the impermanence of all things in nature. The term impermanence is one of the most profound teachings in Buddhism. And what does impermanence is one of the most profound teachings in Buddhism. And what does impermanence mean? It means things are constantly changing, the impermanence of every aspect. But for us, impermanence, when we witness it, it's very, very difficult for us to accept it. we witness it it's very very difficult for us to accept it and so how do we accept the impermanence of our life because that's what life is all about it's impermanence life is always changing it's ups and downs and we struggle with it we people when we you know struggle with it we want everything

in a certain way with the way it's accepted to be you know we want to go to work we want to go back home but then things alter we feel so terrible and it's hard for us to accept and one of the things in the buddhist philosophy the main concept is acceptance and to understand that everything is impermanent and like right right now, you know, minutes are passing into hours, days are turning into weeks and years and life goes on. Nothing is permanent. It is important to remind ourselves, you know, at times of like adversities, negativity, you know, emotions coming up at some point, nearly all of us will experience grief resulting from the loss of a loved one and it's important for us to to understand its impermanence and that too

will pass so let's take a moment at this minute to just come to an understanding that impermanence is something permanent. So we'll stop for a minute here and we'll think about impermanence, that all things are impermanent. And this is a way to accept impermanence. When you have situations in your life you can look back and say this too is impermanent and then it's acceptance acceptance is also very very important and we will be meditating and accepting in during most of these difficult times you know we grasp at happiness or things that we wanted to be the same way and it's never going to be the same all of us this minute we are born we're constantly changing we have aged even though we always refer to ourself as me you know from that baby everything has changed and that's the of life. And when we accept impermanence, we also give rise to gratitude. Why do we have to accept

impermanence? Because when we accept that everything is impermanent, we can be grateful for our life, which is very transient. We can be grateful at this moment for everything we have. And gratitude has a way of, you know, making everything positive. The energy is positive. When you're in deep pain or grief or loss, you can think of gratitude of all the things you have at this very present moment. And that will keep you in a very positive state of mind. And so today, we will also be doing a little mindfulness on gratitude. And here I want to share this beautiful story. I always come back to this story when in my life, when, you know, I'm dealt with impermanence, and I have, you know, sadness in my life when you know I'm dealt with impermanence and I have you know sadness in my

heart I always look back at the story and the story is there was this goddess which was who was flying over this lush forest and it heard a prayer from this bird and so the deity goes down and finds this bird and this bird has absolutely no feathers. It's miserable. It's hungry. It has no water. And this is a very lush forest. And so the deity looks at this bird and understands exactly what has happened.

And the bird, you know, it can't find any food. It can't find any water. The bird, you know, it can't find any food. It can't find any water. And so the deity says to the bird, I have an advice for you and you must follow this. And the goddess tells the bird, anytime you find little water or little food or anything, just recall gratitude-ness. Be grateful. And this is my only advice and then the deity says goodbye to the bird and leaves the forest three months later you know the deity was flying over the same forest and it said where's my bird let me go and see how the bird is doing. And he finds the bird and he's

surprised. And she's surprised, the goddess, because the bird has beautiful feathers. It's, you know, has plenty of water, has plenty of food. And so what the bird did was before, it was just being unappreciative. It was miserable. You know, the forest had changed. And so there was impermanence had happened. It was not lush anymore. But because it started appreciating everything, it showed gratitude when it had even a few drops of water. It changed its own energy space and created abundance. changed its own energy space and created abundance and this is the key to having a positive energy around us when even when we are going through grief loss to change that because you know what

is the choice you can you know dwell in this grief and loss and be miserable, or you can transform that very negative energy to something positive and being in the state of gratefulness even the bed I'm sleeping in even the white sheets or anything that I'm grateful for at that moment and then that puts me in such a wonderful state of mind so now we have learned three important things the thought that everything is impermanent and accepting impermanence and the third is being grateful for whatever we have showing gratitude creating transforming just like the mandalas they symbolize this transformation so here we are showing this transformation from the negative aspects when we feel less to gratefulness. So we will do some meditation. And here we will start the mindfulness meditation. And when we start the meditation session, there are two essential points. One is your body. So please sit upright. And if you have back injuries, that's all right,

try your best. And the second essential point is your mind, because the mind constantly does all the meditation. And so your mind will be in the present moment. And what it means is, you know, sometimes your mind can still be in the office, or it has great lists, you know, sometimes your mind can still be in the office or it has great lists, you know, probably creating a lot of lists, what to do next, well, you know, where am I going to have lunch and so on. So we're going to bring our mind's attention to the present moment. And how are we going to do that? We can put our attention on our breath. So that's a very easy way to do it. And I will give a guided meditation. We can so simply relax and just listen to the guided meditation.

And we will be focusing today on our breath, which is a very easy and simple thing to do. So again, sit up straight. Put your mind's attention on your breath. So just as a practice, let's inhale deeply and exhale. And we'll do this three times, just at the start of the mindfulness meditation. and as you breathe out let go of all the tension you feel all the problems all your stresses and then let's do the third breath hmm the third breath. Wonderful. And now important, we will continue to breathe in our own space

naturally the way we breathe, no deep inhalations or anything and this meditation what I'm teaching you today is called shinne shinne means peaceful calm abiding and to rest your mind in that calm abiding space so sit up again sit up straight. I'll read very softly. So just pay attention to my words. You can keep your eyes open or you can keep your eyes closed. It's up to you, whatever feels comfortable. Breathe in and breathe out normally.

And as you breathe in, see the breath going all the way to the abdomen. And as the breath comes out, breathe out and let it fill the space right in front of you. Just rest in that present moment of awareness. Inhale and exhale, breathe normally. And bring your mind's attention, all of your mind's attention on your breath. Breathe in, keep your mind's attention on your breath.

And as you breathe out, keep your mind's attention on your breath. And as you breathe out, let the air just fill the space in front of you. And just relax. Rest in that present moment of awareness. and slowly you'll notice your mind will wander off and that's all right that's what mind does it wanders off into some thought acknowledge Acknowledge the thought. Don't push your thoughts away. Just acknowledge and bring your mind's attention back to your breath. Again, inhale and exhale, keeping your mind's attention on the breath. And as the breath comes out, just let it fill the space in front of you. And just relax in that present moment.

And in this calm mind, bring to mind, mind's attention, the thought of impermanence. And just acknowledge it, just be in that moment of acknowledging it, saying everything is impermanent. And that's all right. The only thing permanent is impermanence. And so when times, when you're going through grief, when you're going through some negative, strong emotions, just say, this too will be impermanent. And this is a very profound Buddhist practice. And just acknowledge it, accept it.

And just sit, let's sit with that thought for a minute okay relax now again center yourself Now, again, center yourself. Inhale all the way to your abdomen and exhale. And as you breathe out, let your breath fill the entire space in front of you. Just relax. And why do I say let it fill the entire entire space because your mind opens up as well. Breathe in. Gently. And breathe out. and notice your mind

is it following some thought and when you notice your mind's attention has gone off on some thought that's okay that's what mind does bring back your mind's attention on your breath that's what thoughts do you know it's like a your mind is like a spacious beautiful sky and the thoughts are like birds they come they go. And they don't leave any impressions.

Except if you pull on a thought, if you grasp on a thought, and you bring that thought back into your mind. So here in these formal practices, we learn how to let go of that thought gently. And then center yourself, put your attention on your mind, put your attention on your breath. Inhale and exhale. And again, a few minutes, your thought will wander off, your mind will wander off on some thought and that's okay acknowledge it say

thoughts thinking let it go and come back to your minds to your breath your mind's attention on your breath so this way when you are going you know tomorrow you're working and there's a lot of thoughts on your mind, you can let go. And you can put your mind's attention on your breath. This is why we have these formal practices. Okay, let's sit for a few moments. Thank you. Okay, relax for a moment. You can just turn your head this way. A little bit you can relax. You know, these are wonderful ways to meditate for short moments

and you can do this throughout your day it's not that if you sit you need to meditate for 10 minutes 15 minutes or 20 minutes you don't have to give a certain number to your meditation because then you'll be stressful you can just say as long as I feel good and then you get up from the meditation. So here I'm teaching you short moments of meditations that you can practice that when you go home you can also do the same thing. You can practice for one minute of meditation, two minutes and that goes on to five minutes. The more comfortable you are with the meditation, the more you will be happy to meditate. There's a saying during our meditation practices that we do short meditations in the beginning.

And then once we get comfortable, we can extend it for longer periods. So again, let's center ourselves. Sit up straight. And if you have any back injuries, that's okay. Just ease into it. Inhale all the way to your abdomen and exhale. And as you exhale, as your breath comes out, let it fill the whole room and just rest in that present moment of awareness. Thank you. any time you start thinking any thoughts just say thinking and drop it let it go and bring your mind's attention, what matters is when you notice your

mind has wandered off and then you say, label it thinking and bring it back, bring your mind's attention back to your breath. And even though it sounds very simple, this practice, it's extremely profound. So this is where all our great realized masters, where you see doing their meditation, this is one of the meditations they are doing. It's called Shinne, calm abiding. Don't think of the past. The past is gone.

Don't think of the future. The future is not here yet. Put your mind's attention on the present moment. Again, breathe in. Breathe out. Again, breathe in, breathe out, and just rest in that present moment of awareness. and at this moment let us bring to our mind three thoughts of gratitudeness what we are grateful for today whatever it means to you whatever is personal to you. So in this state of sitting in this mindful meditation state, let's bring

three thoughts. Wonderful. Wonderful. You can even do five and see how easy it is. It's a wonderful way of appreciating everything you have in life. So again, let's center ourselves. Inhale. And as you exhale, let your breath fill the entire space in front of you. And just rest in that present moment of awareness. Thank you. it's raining outside here and the weather is quite gloomy but i'm having a smile on my face

just to remind myself that all the wonderful things you know I'm so grateful I can see my rose plant it has bloomed beautiful red roses so I'm focusing my mind even though the weather's gloomy I'm focusing my mind on the more beautiful things appreciating all that's there. You all did wonderful. Thank you so much. You can now relax and just slightly turn your head and shake a little bit.

Thank you for joining us. Have a wonderful blessed day thank you thank you so much mama aria droma that was wonderful thank you thank you that concludes this week's practice if you'd like to support the ruben in this meditation series we invite you to become a member if you're looking for more inspiring content, please check out our new podcast, Awaken, hosted by Laurie Anderson. The 10-part series features personal stories that explore the dynamic path to enlightenment and what it means to wake up. Now available wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening and thank you for practicing with us.