Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Lavina Shamdasani 08/14/2025

Episode Date: August 22, 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 18:23.  Teacher: Lavina Shamdasani Theme: Serenity Prayer Beads; Tibet, 19th century; Turquoise, bone, and silver; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; C2012.6.13  Learn 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 Children. Every Thursday, we offer a meditation session at New York Inside Meditation Center that draws inspiration from an artwork from the Rubin's 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. Good afternoon, everyone, and Tashi Deleg. Welcome. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program

here at New York Insight Meditation Center. I'm Tashi Children, Himalayan Programs, and Communities Ambassador. and I'm delighted to be a host today. So the Rubin is a global museum dedicated to presenting Himalayan art and its insights and we're so glad to have all of you join us in person and online for this weekly program where we combine art and meditation. Inspired by our collection, we will first take a deep look at the work of art we have chosen today and we will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, Lavinasham Dasani, and then we will have a short sit about 15 to 20 minutes

for the meditation guided by her. Let's take a look at today's theme and artwork. The artwork for today's session is this beautiful tanguwa is what we call in Tibetan. Mala, or some of you may be familiar with the word rosary in Christianity. So this prayer beads, the Mala, tangu, is origin from Tibet, dated 19th century. This is turquoise, bone, and silver. This is about 27-58th into 3.5.8 and 1 quarter.

So this is a ritual object. The theme for this month is serenity. And so prayer beads are an integral part of Buddhist practice. They can help practitioners to recite mantras. with conscious intention prompting a greater sense of inner peace and tranquility. So in Tibetan Buddhism, prayer beads are used to count the recitations of prayers and mantras, a process that allows the practitioner to accumulate merit. And so in this longer prayer beads, there is 108 beads in one strand.

there's many different symbolism. One of the symbolic of 108 is to purify or remove the defilement that one seeks to overcome on the path to enlightenment. 108 also is representing wholeness or realizing the interconnectedness so that we all are kind to each other, in other words, right? Compassion and loving kindness. So the prayer beads are ritual object. of a particularly personal nature, and so the material often reflects both the status and personal

taste. These prayer beads are made out of turquoise, as you see here, and there is the bone in between, and there is a captain bead. So if you go a little bit further down, this is often called captain bead that marks one strand. And then what you see here with the tassel is the counter. So each strand has 108, but more like you will count as 100, 100, and then you pull one counterbeat, and then you do the other round, and then second one. When you finish one, that means you have accumulated 1,000. And then you push everything back and go to the next strand and pull one, that is the 1,000 count. So that's how they will keep track of 100,000. accumulation of, you know, certain practice.

All right. And now let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher is Lavinah Sham Dasani. Laveena is a certified compassion teacher through the Compassion Institute and Stanford University. She has taught programs focused on mindfulness, compassion, joy, and gratitude and led book club discussions and meditations for over many years.

Laveena studied positive psychology coaching at the Whole Being Institute and helps clients transform their lives and meet their personal and professional goals. You can find Lavinia on Souljoy bylavena.com. Please help me in welcoming Lavinia Sham Dasani. Thank you. Thank you, Tashi, for the very warm welcome.

And thank you to the Rubin Museum for inviting me back today to lead this session in mindfulness on serenity. And thank you to all of you for being here. You add beautiful energy to the room and practicing together in person is a real gift. So thank you. And on this subject of serenity,

maintaining calm in the face of adversity how many of us are regular practitioners of meditation and mindfulness just show of hands the majority of this room a majority of this room

couple of new folks and with this expert room of practitioners How many of us can maintain calm in the face of adversity? Show of hands. Somewhat, somewhat in the face of a negative situation when you're experiencing something and you're thinking,

oh no, it's happening again. Goodness. And so what is serenity? It's exactly that. Being able to see this negative situation unfold and remaining steady, remaining grounded. And so what are the aspects?

The first is non-reactivity. So the situation could be something in the workplace, something at home. I recently had a situation at home where a floor-to-window ceiling, floor-to-ceiling window, spontaneously cracked and was crumbled, right in front of my eyes.

So it could be something like that, completely out of our control, something at work, negative outcomes at work, and really where it hits hardest is with loved ones. Can we relate to that? Someone we love is hurting us

or demonstrating unskilful behavior, I like to call it, demonstrating unskilful behavior, what then? So the first is non-reactivity, maintaining calm, easier said than done. Our innate response might be to lash back out, to reflect

the unskilful behavior right away, or to crumble into inner turmoil and escalate the unrest that is being biologically created. We can't avoid it. Our bodies are wired to increase heart rate. Our bodies are wired

to become tense. Evolution just hasn't caught up where we can stay calm in these situations. So there's that energy, non-reactivity in the face of this energy. And so the first is, how do you let this energy dissipate?

This is the moment that I really want to tap into today. of course there's non-reactivity there's maintaining equanimity maintaining a calm mind so we know how best to respond in the face of a crumbling window how best do we respond or in the face of a negative work situation

we need to maintain a calm mind to make good choices we don't have to fight back anymore and we don't have to take flight but our bodies are wired to fight or flight so non-reactivity second maintaining balance of mind

very important but before any of that it's just acceptance it's acceptance when I said oh my goodness this is happening again we think we have shielded ourselves

from negativity from pain, but we're vulnerable, aren't we? To love is to be vulnerable. And I am a big proponent of staying in the love sphere, because to shield ourselves entirely from being vulnerable, we would have to be in some kind of a dark box, isolated,

depriving ourselves from the many joys of life. So we have to love and therefore we're vulnerable. So non-reactivity, balance of mind, acceptance that in our vulnerability we will be hurt. That's hard, but accepting that. And finally, staying in the present moment in these situations, staying in the present moment, especially when we have to act fast. We may have to act fast to save our lives

or to prevent further disaster. And when we're dealing with other humans, we have to act fast to dissipate the energy, not to reflect the negativity, because we're simply perpetuating the size, of pain, hurt and pain, hurt and pain. And so that is why I chose our object of art today. Does anyone own a pair of prayer beads, as they refer to,

Rosary? Four of us, five of us, I think, in the room. And I like to think about these as calm, And in that moment of heightened energy, sadness, and pain, if time allows us to grasp our rosary or our meditation beads or our calming beads, touching the beads is grounding. And they're called prayer beads, but they have many different uses and references. Meditation beads.

Prayer is essentially a form of meditation, right? So I love my rosary and just sitting with the rosary and waiting for that initial energy, the energy of hurt, of disappointment. to dissipate. So I'm focusing on that micro moment, if you will. And the best thing to do is to sit with that energy

and it will dissipate. Our habitual patterns might set us off on unskilful behavior. behavior. But if we can do anything different, we are succeeding. Anything different from our habitual patterns. So sitting with a rosary bead or taking a walk or listening to your favorite song in that moment or doing jumping jacks, literally, anything to break our habitual patterns. And so how do we do that with the help of our rosary beads? we practice breath awareness meditation.

That initial energy of disappointment, of emotion, dissipates. From there, we can do a body scan to see where this is hitting us the most. And I'm holding my hand to my heart because we can self-soothe. From there, we can engage in self-compassion, self-loving kindness in that micro-moment. Because the pain is real.

The pain is felt. The hurt exists somewhere in our body, in our hearts. And we have to heal. We have to think about what we need the most. And so we can offer self-loving kindness to ourselves, self-compassion to ourselves in those moments. Maybe writing down what it is we want in this moment. Do we need to be with a friend?

Do we need to share? Do we need to listen to music, walk, movement? And giving ourselves. allowing ourselves, whatever it is that we need. So the how, breath awareness practice, body scan, to see where it's showing up for you. Three, self-compassion, self-loving kindness, and then finally, letting go of the need to control,

of the need to fix the situation right away this is very important to fix the situation right away oh my goodness this is happening again and we're thinking I don't want this to happen right now I need this to stop

but we can't so acceptance and letting go. And then the hardest part is to ask ourselves, are we still okay despite what happened? And that's something I'm still struggling with. Am I okay? Can I still experience joy?

Can I still smile, find happiness? For the most part, yes. but I'm still carrying the weight and hopefully time is our greatest healer but the intense energy has dissipated the acceptance has kicked in I'm hoping now I will lead you

in a meditation where we can do these things breath-focused practice, body scan, and finally, self-compassion, offering ourselves some self-compassion, self-loving kindness. And so I invite you to find a comfortable position. You can either lower your gaze or close your eyes, whatever feels most comfortable.

maintaining a position of alertness, comfort yet alertness. We want to work with this. We want to stay present with what's going on and not fall asleep, hopefully. But if you fall asleep, self-compassion, non-judgment. You're very tired. And so let's begin with three deep breaths just to release any residual energy.

I invite you to inhale all the way in. Inhale deeply and exhale, releasing through the mouth. And two more. Inhale. And exhale through the mouth. dropping the shoulders, releasing. And one final inhale. And exhale through the mouth.

And now just drop into your body's natural rhythmic breath, inhaling and exhaling through your nostrils. And really noticing the breath, bringing your attention to where the sensations of the breath are most prevalent for you. Whether it's in the rising and lowering of your chest or in the flow of air in and out of your nostrils. And I'm going to be silent and let you really experience the body breathing. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if your mind wanders from the breath, notice, notice where your mind goes, honor the thought that comes up. No resistance to thinking. Gently release the thought and again,

bring your attention to your breath. And notice if something comes up for you, something comes up for you, some pain, something you're struggling with a negative situation. And in this simple breath awareness practice, release with each exhale. Inhale a little bit of light and with each exhale, release a little bit of that energy. A little bit of that pain.

This is how, in that heightened moment, we can let the energy of our emotions dissipate. Inhale, love. Let go. Thank you. And now bring to mind. a visual of something that represents to you unconditional love and compassion.

It could be a dear friend, it could be a pet, an object in nature, vast ocean. The sun emanating its warmth, a golden light, and really notice the warmth that this compassionate image is radiating. And in the presence of this compassionate image, you can be entirely yourself. There's no judgment.

Only loving kindness. You are the recipient of this boundless love, boundless compassion. Bring in this golden light, this boundest love. Let it flourish you, heal you, soothe you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And

releasing the visual, just being resting resting. Asking yourself, what small act of kindness might you offer yourself today? Hopefully you have a long list. Set the intention to get to one of those list items today. Thank you. And when you're ready, gently open your eyes. Thank you so much for that wonderful session.

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 Rubin Museum.org slash friends. If you are looking for more inspiring content, please check out our other podcasts, Awaken, which uses art to explore the dynamic paths to enlightenment and what it means to wake up. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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