Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Lama Tashi 09/07/2023

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

Theme: Realization Artwork: The Red All-Seeing Lord; Rakta Avalokiteshvara; Tibet; late 18th century; Pigment on cloth; C2005.29.1 (HAR 65564) http://therubin.org/379 Teacher: Lama Tashi  The Rubin Museum of Art presents a weekly 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 recorded in front of a live audience, and includes an opening talk, a 20-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion.The guided meditation begins at 19:51. This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine.  If you would like to attend Mindfulness Meditation sessions in person 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. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. Welcome, Tashi Delek. Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation at the Rubin Museum of Art.

I am Tashi Chodron, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador, and I'm so delighted to be your host today. And it's so nice to be back. So those of you who are new, we are a global hub for Himalayan art with a home base in Chelsea, 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 first take a look at work of art from our collection. We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, and we are so happy to have our special guest teacher today, Lama Tashi. And then we will

have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes, for the meditation guided by him. Now let's take a look at today's theme and artwork. The theme this month is Mind of Awakening, a spiritual realization. And the art connection for today's session is this beautiful Thangka painting of red Avalokiteshvara, origin Nepal or Tibet, dated 1871. And the dimension of this Thangka is 48 1⁄2 x and a half into one and a half inches. This is a beautiful scroll painting of mineral pigment on cloth. This is one of the most recognizable mantra in the Buddhist world, and that is Om Mani Padme Hum, often referred to as the six-syllable mantra, which is associated with the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who actually appears in many different forms. Avalokiteshvara

appears in one thousand arms, thousand eyes, eleven-headed, in peaceful and wrathful, eleven-headed, in peaceful and wrathful, mostly in white in color, but this is a very special one, red in color. He also appears in four-arm, six-arm as well, and in here it's the beautiful red Avalokiteshvara in two arms. In Tibetan, he's known as Chandrig Zeg. Now depicted here is the red Avalokiteshvara painted in warm hues. He beckons viewers with the right hand held in the gesture of supreme generosity, the right palm facing the earth, palm facing to the audience. Around his radiant body are worldly deities, many originating in the Hindu tradition such as Shiva, Brahma, Surya, Varuna, Ananta, Chandra, Vishnu and Agni. This symbolizes his ability to see and manifest his compassion in all realms while all other deities pay homage to

him. Avalokiteshvara, the Chandrashe, is a bodhisattva who has made a vow to remain in the cycle of rebirth through countless lifetimes to work for the benefit of all sentient beings. Bodhisattvas vow not to pass into the blissful state of nirvana until all sentient beings are free of the cycle of samsara. Practitioners visualize Avalokiteshvara aspiring to make their body, speech and mind indistinguishable for his. Now, let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher is Lama Tashi. Geshe Nawang Tashi Babu, known as Lama Tashi, is the president of Siddhartha Foundation, Mongot. He served as the principal chant master of Dalai Lama's Drepung Loseling Monastery.

Lama Tashi's Tibetan deep voice is world-renowned. He was the first Tibetan Buddhist monk to be nominated for Grammy with his recording of Tibetan master chants. Lama Tashi has shared his considerable knowledge at Buddhist and spiritual centers and universities throughout the U.S. Lama Tashi focuses his teachings on living a life of happiness, a secular approach to achieving a happier life. Lama Tashi, thank you so much for being here. Please help me in welcoming Lama Tashi. Tashi Delek, good afternoon. Let's start with setting motivation. What we believe is very important, if we start any kind of things

with positive thoughts and motivation, we will accumulate more merits, good karma. So here we will say, for the benefit of all sentient beings, I would like to be an enlightened being or a good human being. So that's why I am here to meditate and engage with this talk. So I will chant. So if you can set this talk. So I will chant, so if you can set this motivation.. .

. ..天地心相伴当中般相同伴走遍一般当中 尊定般的 我来相伴 今天经般 接伴的 为何乱就 那能命般

那能命能见 能不三解 就念定 便就 相相度 不乱 相相乱 就能见

尊心 为 无畏三解卷当尊解中难中文字幕——YK Chant. and all I've been just doing what I enjoy. Good afternoon again. First, I will talk a little bit on this particular deity, Avalokiteshvara. Already Tashila mentioned a lot, so I don't think that I need to go into detail. However, when we talk about Avalokiteshvara, most times we find him in white color. White in color?

One of the main things is when we talk about enlightened beings or Buddhas, we talk about a purified form of being. And when we reach to that state, we have like five elements, water, fire, earth, wind, and then space. And then we also talk about five wisdom, and we also talk about five aggregates. So when we reach to the enlightened state,

all our five elements and five aggregates. So when we reach to the enlightened state, all our five elements and five aggregates and five wisdoms transform into five different Buddhas. And to represent the five elements and five aggregates and five wisdom, they came in five different colors. White, yellow, red, green, and blue. So that's one thing. When you find a red Avalokiteshvara,

red Tara, or red Manjushri, whatever, that's among the five, this is Buddha Amitabha family. Family of Buddha Amitabha, family of Buddha Beru Sanna, family of Buddha Ratnasambhara, family of Buddha Amoghasiddhi, and family of Buddha Akshuvya, five of them. But when we talk about the three families of the Buddha, three Buddha families, then that represents the body, speech, and mind, consciousness. In that case, body is a white, speech is red, mind is a blue. So when we talk about these three Buddha families, then our Lokokiteshvara represents the body.

So you will find mostly in white color. But Avalokiteshvara is white, Manjushri is reddish yellow, and then Vajrapani is blue in color. However, if you think of one individual being like us, when we become enlightened, our five aggregates will transform into five different colors, Buddha. Buddha, Vajrasana, Buddha, just as I mentioned earlier. So, same thing with Avalokiteshvara.

He will have his share of five Buddhas. So this is what mostly represents one of the five Buddhas. And if we talk from the three, the body, speech, and mind, then of course white. Anyway, one thing that I want to share, when I was taking class from my teacher, you know, sometimes if you look at a person, it's completely red, completely blue, completely green. You know, sometimes we find it little, what do you call it, I don't know, shall I say that it's difficult, or find little difficult to accept or look at that way.

Let me share a story. My home region is the border of India, Tibet, and Bhutan. So before India got independent, it was under British. So the British officials came to our home region in 1937. And of course, Britishers are very white. So our people have never seen white people. So one old lady, she was kind of doubtful about whether that person is really human or not. So she said, is this really human?

This lady just came and just curiosity, how can human can be this white? Right, same thing like that, right? You know, how can human can be this white? Same thing like that, right? How can this can be very red? How can someone can be very blue and green? That always comes. When I was young, I got this curiosity, and I asked my master, are those Buddhas, red Buddhas,

completely red like a painted red or white like a white wash color kind of thing. And he said, he refers to a text and said, that's not the case in reality. They are called red, white, green, yellow. It says that like among the red, I think we call like ruby, it's the most beautiful red color. And then green, you might find like what, emerald, beautiful green color stone. So it says that if you put that emerald next to Tara, Tara is a green. So if you put Tara, although you know, when you look at Tara, she isn't that greenish color, but if you put the emerald next to Tara,

the Tara's color will cut off the beauty of the emerald. Same thing, like Avalokiteshvara, if you put a ruby next to him, then the beauty of the red color of the ruby will fade off because of his color. So that's why they are called Red Buddha, Green Buddha, and Enlightened Being. So this is the one thing that I wanted to share. So according to my master, when we talk about the red, it doesn't mean like, you know, he's red painted,

colored like dead red. You know, he's still, you know, when you look at him, he appears more like a normal, but little reddish. But the main thing is that if you have a ruby, the most precious, beautiful color, if you put next to him, his color will cut off his jewel, even the jewel, color of the jewel. Okay, that's something that I want to share. Next we will go for a meditation. So when we talk about mindfulness meditation, you will find mindfulness of body, mindfulness

of feeling, mindfulness of consciousness, and mindfulness of phenomena. So four of them, four meditations. So I don't want to go in for detail. We can select one of the objects, whether you want to focus on your own body, or whether you want to focus on your feeling, whether you want to focus on consciousness, or the phenomena. Phenomena, in the case, in Mahayana sense, is mostly the emptiness of the phenomena. So the four objects, here one of the stanzas

that helped me a lot, very helpful for me, is from one of the Indian great masters for Nalanda University, maybe from the fifth or sixth century, Acharya Gyanagarbha. His stanza is translated in Tibetan. It's called... So this is what he said. Our mental consciousness is more like a wandering elephant.

You know, if you try to halt, you cannot because it's elephant, very powerful. So our mind goes here and they're wandering kind of thing. And then secondly, it says like he gave the example of chain, iron chain for mindfulness. You use mindfulness to tie the wandering elephant and then tie it to the pillar. Here the pillar is the object of meditation. As I mentioned earlier, objects of meditation can be your body, you can just meditate on your body, or something outside, image of Buddha, whatever. Or you can focus on your feelings, what's going on.

But when we talk about meditation, you shouldn't be judgmental. Just look at, watch it there and let it go. Not like, how is that happening? What's happening? You shouldn't have any question. Just watch at the object and let it flow. That's the most important part. So he said that tie that wandering elephant with the chain of mindfulness into the object. And once you have, you know, tied that our mind, mental consciousness, into the object, now you use the iron bar of introspection, just looking

at whether you are staying focused on the object or not, nothing else. If your mind diverts from the object, then iron bar, like the elephant trainer, they use iron bar to control the elephant. So we need introspection, watching our consciousness, whether it's focusing to the object or not. So we will do this as a meditation. Now, when we meditate, first, traditionally, we watch our breathing and counting it. So we may not go for that detail. If you want to do meditation at home, you might want to count your breathing first and then sit for meditation and watching on something or an object. So when we meditate,

now I will chant the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, which has healing energy. In Tibetan society, we believe those mantras are the purest and most positive form of sound and word. So if you recite, that word itself will transform you to a higher dimension. So we will sit in a sitting meditation posture.

And whatever object you choose, you just focus there. And then when we start meditation, I will chant. And then you just let your mind, consciousness, you know, flow by focusing on the object. First we'll go like a little bit of silence. We can start with counting your breath. This is a technique to bring ourself into now in here.

Count it, just breathe in, breathe out. Thank you.. After counting the breath for like maybe five times, you can increase it if you want to in the future. And then, now as we went earlier, select an object, make your consciousness for the third eye, focusing on that object. When you sit, sit your back straight up and bend down your neck a little bit, as if you are looking through the tip of your nose. You shouldn't be looking far away from yourself. Says that tip of your tongue should be touching to the upper palate.

Now you focus on the object. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I will be chanting so you can continue your meditation, focusing on the object. And for this one, you may think that Avalokiteshvara is sitting in front of you and sending blessings to you. And although it will be my voice chanting, but you should think that this is the sound of the mantra itself. Mantras that come from the Avalokiteshvara, from his heart, and come with the light and nectar, dissolve into you and heal you by developing your compassion, kindness, and love towards all other beings, and removing all negative thoughts, negative intentions, and bless you with all the enlightened qualities.

So you can visualize this. Huy m'ai ne'er, ne'er m'ai huy. Oh, my dear, bear me away. Oh, my dear, bear me away. Oh, my dear, bear me away. Oh, my dear. Oh, my dear. Oh, my dear. Oh, my. Now that you have been blessed by Avalokiteshvara by sending the mantras,

replica of his mantra, which are making auto-sound and then came into you and blessed you by purifying everything, all the negativity and increasing your positive

qualities, mainly compassion, love and kindness. Now once you are blessed, you need to be kind to other beings. So now from your heart, the replica of mantra goes out. Blessing your beloved one can be starting from your beloved one, your parents, your siblings, your partner, your children, your good friends, and all the relatives. And it goes beyond all other beings.

So you send the mantra as the Avalokiteshvara sends the mantra and bless to you. Now you bless all other beings. So you send the mantra as the Avalokiteshvara sends the mantra and bless to you. Now you bless all other beings. And main thing is with the blessing, they become more compassionate, more kind, more loved, and free from negative intentions, anger, satiates hatred and so on. At the same time, purifying their physical problems and the problems with their speech, problems with their consciousness. So purify all body, speech and mind of all sentient beings

and make them same as you, the blessed one, and the same as Avalokiteshvara. So I will chant again. Please visualize that. Huy moniae mea eua. OM OM With this, please experience the great joy in your heart because of the blessing of our Loke Deshwara.

Sit there without any attachment, grasping and clinging. And make a dedication that whatever good merits I have accumulated, may this brings peace and harmony in the society. On earth, may no pandemic, no wars, no famine, and no natural disasters happen on earth. And may all the great beings, like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and many other great beings, live long, and their messages reach to all other beings. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Lamutashila, for that very beautiful chanting to remove negative emotions and to give rise to the compassion and loving kindness. That concludes this week's practice. To support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member at rubenmuseum.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 two, 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. you so much for listening have a mindful day