Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Michel Pascal 11/20/2025

Episode Date: November 28, 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 18:39.Teacher: Michel Pascal Theme: Generosity Mandala Offering Set; Central Tibet; mid 20th century; gilt silver; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin; SC2012.7.1a-eLearn 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 Tashiderek. Welcome. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program here at this beautiful place at New York Inside Meditation Center.

I'm Tashi Churdan, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador. and I'm delighted to be your host today. The Rubin is a good museum dedicated to Himalayan art and its insights, and we are so glad to have all of you join us 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 chosen by our teacher, Michelle Pascal, so wonderful to have you back. And then we will have a short set about 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation guided by him.

Let's take a look at today's theme and artwork. So the artwork for today's session is this beautiful stacked up called Mandala Offering Set. Origin Central Tibet, dated mid-20th century, gilt silver. This is about 10.5 into 5.5 inches. And it's a ritual object. So now the word mandala or mandala, In Tibetan, it's called Kilkor, basically means perfect center and circle. It is a visualization aid to reach your goal, the center, which is awakening or enlightenment.

But this particular mandala is ritual objects, which is often used in the making offerings. And the connection to the theme, generosity, when a practitioner with heaps of, of rice and sometimes you'll find flowers, semi-precious stones, coins, as you see here, lots of rice. Each level of the set with both hands holding it, they symbolize offering the entire universe to the rituals, the teacher, the sangha, the assembly. So the practice of giving opens our hearts and fosters a sense of appreciation and gratitude. So there is so much symbolic meaning in each of these stacks and the directions of different cardinals. But in a simple form, the mandala offering is a symbolic offering made by Tibetan Buddhist practitioners.

And the mandala offering also symbolizes the offering of the entire universe, including all materials and spiritual possessions to the Buddha's bodhisattvas, visible and invisible deities. and the act of giving is conducted for the purpose of purification and the accumulation of merit. It is beneficial in training the mind to let go of attachment and self-centeredness by practicing generosity. Okay, now let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher is Michelle Pascal. Michelle is a meditation teacher for 25 years and has led successful programs for prisoners which help prevent suicides and reduce re-offending.

He's written 20 books on spirituality, including meditation for daily stress, 10 practices for immediate well-being, known as the Medicine Voice. He's performed at Carnegie Hall and played at the Peace Day concert in Times Squares in 2023, and in December 2020, 3, he presented his methods at the United Nations. Michelle will be performing again at Carnegie Hall, in January of 2026, please help me in welcoming Michelle Pascal.

Thank you. I am so happy to be here with Tashi, Jacqueline, with each of you for the Rubin Museum, for the most important thing that we need to do today. to do today, especially in New York, to quiet the mind. This is the most important. All our life depends on our calming mind. Our health depends on our calming mind.

Our relationships with our friends, with the people that we love, depends on our calming mind. our work, our success, or our project, or creativity, all depends on our calming mind. If we are stressed, nothing can work. So it's a privilege for me to teach again for the last time, for the Rubin here, after we go back to the Rubin theater, but to be here with you.

And first, I would like to sing for you you, the mantra, we will open my next concert at Carnegie Hall. January 11, we will celebrate my 10 years' concert at Carnegie Hall. So today, this is your Carnegie Hall. Two-wee-wee-wee-to-wee-ah-li-li-wee-a-lii-a-lii. Pemeyo, omani, omani, mani, pemeo, omani, pemeo. Omani pemeo. Omani pemeo. Omani pemeo.

Omani Pemaeum, Omani, Ommany, Pemeyom. Omani, Pemmey. Oh, mani, be me home. Oh, mani, be me home. Oh, my name. I mean meo. Omanimani and meo.

So today's So today's topic, it's about generosity. Of course we know the generosity. The generosity that we can buy. Generosity with money. We give money to someone in difficulty. We give money to help people in difficulties. This is beautiful, of course.

But I would like to talk to you about something deeper than that. What we can name is a spiritual generosity. A generosity that no money, can buy, a generosity who is priceless. The generosity of our calming energy that we can offer to someone. The spiritual generosity of our presence.

My friends, when we are stressed, we spend our life to never be alive. we are not alive we are not present we are not generous we see someone we say hello who are you hello who are you

the mind disappear we spend our life to never be alive and it's too late when we realize we realize for example

when we are facing the death when we are sick suddenly make the experience when we are sick physically when we suffer physically we realize how to be present

is a form of spiritual generosity so when we go to buy a coffee we can be generous we can be present to the person who prepare our coffee when we are at home

when we live with someone to be present to the person to say, who are you today to be present, I can make a coffee for you I can cook your breakfast but I will offer the generosity of my presence. I will be with you. The spiritual generosity is also to listen,

not to hear, but to listen, to pay attention. For example, me, I love when I meet someone for the first time to really pay attention. when I meet someone for the first time when I say hello I meet you today I say I want an empty mind to be present to the person so the spiritual generosity

but the question is how is it possible to be generous spiritually when our brain is running all the time we understand that in theory in the class but after when we go back to New York we forget in one second

because our brain is running all the time so how can we offer our presence? How can we calm the mind? This is the main question of our time. Many different

approach exist as my sister Tashila was explaining, I have the blessing to teach since 12 years for the population incarcerated in Los Angeles, prisoners, parolese, lifers, men and women, and now kids from juvenile incarcerated at 9 or 10 years. How can we calm these people? How is it possible. I have the blessing now to become the teacher of SpaceX. I train the astronauts who go to the moon in two years. They are so stressed. I train also engineer at Google. I train in a group of 100 CEOs all around the world. When you train CEOs,

celebrity, astronaut, prisoners, this is the same question. This is the same brain. The brain is running all the time. So we cannot say to someone's stress, oh, my friend, take a deep breath. People don't listen today. You know the attention span today. Three seconds.

one, two, three. After three, we don't listen. We lose our attention. So how is it possible to calm the mind, to help people to be generous spiritually? Again, when Tashi was showing us the Tibetan master, all the Tibetan master explain that meditation means.

means Lung. Lung in Tibetan, L-U-N-G means the transmission of energy. Because all is energy, all is vibration, all is resonance. And when we share a calming energy

with anyone, we transmit our callus to the Perel. And immediately, we modify the vibration of the person. Neuroscientist since 30 years confirm what we learn in a monastic life since 3,000 years. When you talk quietly to someone,

when you lead a quiet meditation, there is a neuron mirror effect. Immediately, we calm the person. So how to calm the mind in our crazy world? It's not to ask an effort. It's not to give tips. It's when we share a profound calming energy. So each of you, you are meditation teachers.

Because I wish that after this class, each of you, when you will ask a coffee, you go to a Starbucks, you say, or maybe not Starbucks, but you go to a coffee shop, and you ask a tea, a cappuccino, or when someone brings for you a cup of water, and you say from your heart, thank you for this water.

Every situation is an opportunity to train our brain to modify our life and I will say to finish to reconsider our daily life as a spiritual life we need to change our daily life we are too much overthinking

we need to transform our daily life in a spiritual daily life to share our calming energy every day, in every situation. And this is the awakening. The awakening it's when we are able to be quiet in

New York City. The awakening is when we are able to be quiet in a conflict when someone is unkind but you keep your calming energy. I can lead

a meditation in one minute for each of you. And just we close our eyes. We are sitting down. in a comfortable position we do nothing just

we are sitting down in a comfortable position and we observe our mind our mind is like a sky a pure

blue sky and you can see in your mind some emotions like clouds in the sky of your mind or you can listen some noises in this room some noises some noises some noises some noise in this room some noises in the street of New York. They are like clouds in the sky of your mind. They have no consistency. So when we visualize our emotions, like the clouds in the sky in the sky, What can we do?

We can dissolve mentally the clouds of our emotion. Visualize the clouds in your mind, the emotions in your mind. You breathe in like a wind. and you dissolve the clouds and immediately the silence your mind your mind is like a sky Let's do it again.

Breathe in like a wind. Dissolve your emotions. And we stay like that. One second. Two seconds. Three. And when we are quiet in the middle of New York City, we can listen from the sky some chanting.

to bea loo e'alli y'alli y'alli y'alli yale yale y'allet y'alli o'alli o'alli o'alli o'alli o'alli o'u t'u. When we're leo-la-lawi-o-wee-lawi-o-wee-lawi-o-wee-you-ho. When we medit it, Like a sky, we become the sky. We become the sky. And we can open our eyes. It's amazing to calm the mind in the middle of New York City with no effort, no exercise, just to feel a calming energy

Thank you so much, Michelle, for that brilliant chanting. 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 Rubenmuseum.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.