Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Lavina Shamdasani 11/27/2025

Episode Date: December 5, 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 13:55.Teacher:  Lavina ShamdasaniTheme: Generosity Vasudhara, Goddess of Abundance; Nepal; 17th century; gilt copper alloy; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; C2007.27.2Learn 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. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon and Tashi Deleg. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program at this beautiful space at New York Insight Meditation Center.

I'm Tashi Children, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador, and I'm delighted to be your host today. The Rubin is a global museum dedicated to presenting Himalayan art and its insights, and we are so glad to have all of you join us for our 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've chosen for today. We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, Lavinasham Dasani, and then we will have a short sit 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation guided by. her. Now let's take a look at today's theme and artwork. The theme for the month of November is generosity

and the art connection for today's session is this beautiful sculpture of Vasudara. In Tibetan, she's known as Norjuma or Norla, the goddess of abundance and the goddess of wealth. This is origin Nepal dated 17th century and this is a gilt copper alloy. The size is about seven, almost eight inches into seven and a half into a five one eighth. So the connection to the theme, Vasudara, is a Buddhist goddess of prosperity and harvest. She's associated with both material and spiritual abundance. As we gaze upon her, may we open our hearts to express greater generosity and gratitude during this holiday. Vasudara means shower of wealth. She's often likened to Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth.

Vasudara is closely associated with Zambhala, another Buddhist deity of wealth. She's portrayed in many forms, including as the concert of Zambhala. In India and Tibet, she's often depicted with two arms, and in the Nehwar community of the Kathmandu Valley, she is portrayed with six arms, typically holds a symbol of prosperity. Her right hands often hold a jewel or mala rosary, and the Varadha Mudra, the gesture of giving or supreme generosity. While her left hands hold a shaft of grain, a part of abundance, and the Prajna Paramita Sutra, a Buddhist text.

This signifies her bountiful. Vassudara is associated with autumn in the Kathmandu Valley, where she is worshipped after the rice harvest. Depicted here in the Lalitasaana, or the Royal East position, she sits with her lower right hand open and her palm facing forward, fingers pointing towards the earth, in a gesture of offering, often known as supreme generosity. After the rice is harvested, her image is placed upon piles of rice stocks in a means of expressing gratitude for the abundance of the season. Much like rice stocks, her body has a golden hue, which is a color associated with generosity. 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, and joy and gratitude, and led book club discussions and meditations for over five years. Lavina studied positive psychology, coaching at the Whole Being Institute and helps clients transform their lives and meet their personal and professional goals. Find Lavina at Souljoy bylavena.com. Lavina, thanks so much for being here.

Thank you, Tashi, and thank you to the Rupin Museum for welcoming me back today. It's a joy to be here with all of you. Thank you, all of you, for being here to practice in this hour of mindfulness meditation. And that was a beautiful description of Vasudara, the goddess of wealth, likened to the goddess of wealth. or what I like to think of as abundance. And as you heard, the theme for the month is generosity. So what is generosity? The true meaning of generosity is the willingness to give freely and abundantly,

not just material things, but also time, skills, love, homemade food that's one of the ways that I like to show love is by cooking for others and doing this without expecting anything in return

so a sense of kindness without expecting anything in return but I'm here to tell you that you do indeed get something in return by offering acts of kindness. In fact, as I was thinking about this talk today, I realized that some things,

some good things in fact in life are free. And one of them is this ability to give. It doesn't require necessarily money, simply time, and most often simply an openness and attitude. of wanting to offer kindness even in the slightest way such as a smile and the reason I say that some good things indeed in life are free is that in giving we receive in fact

having read a book excerpts of a book The How of Happiness by Sonia Lubermiskey this has been researched and evidenced that giving is not just good for the receiver. We know that giving offers peace, a sense of nurturing to the receiver, but this has been proven that giving is, in fact, a wonderful way to increase the happiness in your own life.

So consider that simply by giving, whether it's the act of, of listening attentively, offering a hug, a smile. We indeed can be happier. Think about that. It's profound. And I'll invite you to think about a time when you were generous with your spirit. How did it feel for you?

Do you connect with a warm glow that might have lasted for the better part of the day, perhaps even into the week, after you offered an act of kindness to a loved one? That is called compassion, joy. This feeling of openness, that little bounce in our step from having been nice to someone else, creates joy in our own life.

So this is, in fact, a big motivation to be kind. There are many other ways that we can benefit from kindness. Not only do we alleviate some form of stress or suffering in somebody that we love or a stranger. Like I said, we create compassion, joy for ourselves. And beyond that, we can also build community by being kind. We can build connection by being kind. Think about this. One act of kindness can, in fact, be multiplied into,

many acts of kindness. When you give, the receiver feels more open to giving as well. And so you can then multiply numerous times acts of kindness. So connection, spreading joy, and also sometimes we can reflect on our own abundance when we connect with someone who needs our love. So it has helps us feel more grateful, increases gratitude for what we have in our own lives. And finally, we feel good about ourselves as we give. It increases our own self-perception and our own self-worth. So there are many different reasons to offer an act of kindness. And I just want to say that having mentioned this book, it's important. to change it up, to do something different, and not necessarily burden yourself with having

to do it when you yourself are strapped for time or energy. But changing up, variety is the key here. So if one week you decide that your act of kindness is going to be preparing a homemade meal, perhaps the next week it might be walking somebody's dog or visiting a nursing center and offering company to some elderly people. So changing it up is essentially the key to enhancing our own sense of happiness that we can get from acts of kindness. And focusing on something that you wouldn't normally do is also key to feeling good about your acts of kindness. And that's because we all probably offer random acts of kindness in our day-to-day lives. But doing something above and beyond that. And really bringing intention to what you're doing

is how we can also increase our happiness from being kind to others. And the last thing I'd love to touch on is that sometimes when we have experienced great suffering of our own, it can be hard to mobilize. It can be hard to get out of bed, to want to function. But engaging in some consistent way of giving back in those moments can be helpful.

and if we can just get ourselves to that first effort of engaging and giving back, compassion, joy that gets generated will fuel the next effort. In fact, there was a study done with multiple sclerosis patients where five multiple sclerosis patients were asked to be mentors to a number of others. and this research study found that the people who engaged as community givers, the five that engaged to be mentors, found themselves to be much better able to cope with multiple sclerosis despite the fact that there was no cure.

They felt stronger, they felt good about themselves, even in giving back. So in helping others, they essentially were able to help themselves. So here I am today really motivating you to engage in acts of generosity and in acts of kindness, changing it up, keeping it spicy, and doing something that is not in your ordinary realm of acts of kindness. And see how that goes for yourself. And when you're ready, we will now practice. a kindness meditation.

So I'll invite you to find a comfortable position. Ideally, sitting with your feet grounded to the floor. Find a comfortable position for the placement of your hands, either on your laps, or you can clasp them together. And I'll invite you to either lower your hands. gaze or close your eyes, minimizing visual distractions help us go deeper in our meditation practices. And let's begin with three deep diaphragmatic breaths, really inhaling all the way in, down to your belly button, expanding the chest, and exhaling and exhaling and

releasing every little last breath of air. And I'll let you do two more at your own pace. Inhaling deeply and exhaling. And one last inhale and exhale. And on the exhale, see if you can drop your shoulders ever so slightly, releasing any residual tension. And now, letting go of the deeper breathing, let your body fall into its natural rhythm of the breath, bringing your awareness to your forehead and releasing any residual tension in your

forehead, bringing your awareness to your neck and your shoulders, and releasing any tightness there, and relaxing your abdomen, your legs, your legs, relaxing. your fingers and your toes. And now bring your attention to your body breathing. Notice the floor of air on the inhale and the escape of air through your nose. on the exhale or bring your attention to the gentle rising and lowering of your chest wherever you feel the sensations of the breath the most and if your mind jumps to a thought, that's

what the mind does. Butterfly mind, I like to call it, jumping from one thought to another. Notice the thought. Notice what's coming up for you. And without any judgment, gently release the thought. And bring your attention

back to your breath. and come back to the sensations of your breath. Bring to mind a situation where you were the recipient of an act of kindness, an act of generosity of the spirit, bring to mind the details of that situation, touching, touching gently on what you were going through and really recalling what this person did for you as an act of kindness.

And now letting go of the story really connect with how you felt in that moment. Did it bring an openness to your heart center? A gentle smile of surprise to your soul. tapping into that feeling of nurturing and care that you received. And really thinking about how that might have opened you up perhaps led to other connections.

Maybe you painted forward. And really connecting for just a minute or two to how it felt inside. Perhaps it generated a sense of calm, sense of peace, and ignited within you your own sense of altruism. And now letting go of that visualization. Bring to mind a small act of kindness that you perhaps offered. A loved one or a stranger.

It doesn't have to be a big act. of kindness or a grand gesture just a simple and intentional offering of love remembering the conditions

of that situation what motivated you to help and now recalling how you felt as the giver of this act of kindness noticing what comes up for you. A similar sense of openness in your heart center. A sense of connection.

A sense of common human. that we all essentially want to be free of suffering and we all want to be happy and at peace. And how did it feel inside you? Can you connect to this compassion? joy, kindness, joy, a feeling of abundance and gratitude for your own good fortunes. of that visualization and simply resting in this openness, this willingness to help just for the sake of wanting to help and not necessarily expecting anything in return.

And I'll ask you to think about a new act of kindness that you might want to offer a recipient, bring to mind someone that you'd like to offer this act of kindness to and really set of kindness again that's burden-free and really set the intention to get to this act of kindness in the next couple of days and noticing how it feels for you

to simply have set this intention, does it feel different? And now just resting for the last minute or two of this practice. and the gift of the body breathing itself. And when you're ready, breathing itself. Gently open your eyes. Thank you for being here. And enjoy your random act of kindness. Thank you so much for that, Lavinia.

That's all the time we have for today. Thank you all for joining us for the mindfulness meditation. program at this beautiful sacred space at New York Insight Meditation Center where hearts and minds awaken. 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 Ruben Museum's work around the world, visit RubenMuseum.org. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day. Thank you.