Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Rebecca Li 02/20/25

Episode Date: February 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 25:18.Teacher: Rebecca Li Theme: Lovingkindness Red Avalokiteshvara also known as Bunga Dya and Macchendranath; Nepal; dated by inscription, 1842; pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin; C2006.66.45Learn 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 Churden. Every Thursday, we offer a meditation session at New York Insight 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 Insight 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. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program at New York

Insight Meditation Center. I'm Jacqueline Smith, Manager of Curriculum Development and Education, and I'm delighted to be your host today. The Rubin is a global hub for Himalayan art, 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 look at a work of art.

We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, Rebecca Lee, and then we will have a short sit of 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 February is loving kindness and the work of art that we've chosen for today is Red Avalokiteshvara. This is a painting, it's pigments on cloth, it's from Nepal and we can precisely date it to the year 1842 due to an inscription that's on it. It's relatively large in scale. It's 30 and 1 eighth inches by 22 and three quarters inches. And as I mentioned, this month's theme is loving kindness and Avalokiteshvara is the embodiment of loving kindness.

May we be inspired by his example to radiate compassion to ourselves and others. This painting portrays Raktas, or red Lokshvara, a meditation form of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. An inscription in Nuwari, a Nepali script, emphasizes Lokshvara's kindness. He stands at the center of this painting with his spiritual father Amitabha emanating from his crown. He is surrounded by a number of Hindu gods emanating from his body. In Nepal, Buddhist and Hindu deities are both vital parts of ritual life. They are worshipped

side by side. Several deities particularly important to local communities are celebrated by Hindus and Buddhists alike during annual festivals and in daily rituals. Red Lokshvara is also known as the Hindu deity, Makhendranath, who is appealed to in a festival preceding the monsoon rains. This painting was commissioned by a man named Shakya Bhikshu, who lived in Kathmandu. The donor is portrayed with his family beneath the inscription. So if you take a look at the Mahakala towards the bottom of the painting, the six members of the donor's family are portrayed on either side. We are honored to welcome Rebecca Lee as our teacher for today. And Dr. Rebecca Lee is a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Shang Yin

and the founder and guiding teacher of the Chan Dharma community. She teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures, and leads retreats in North America and Europe. Rebecca is the author of Allow Joy Into Our Hearts, Chan Practice in Uncertain Times, and her new book titled Illumination, A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No Method, was published by Shambhala Publications in October of 2023. Rebecca is a sociology professor and lives with her husband in New Jersey. Her talks and writings can be found at rebeccalee.org. Please join me in welcoming Rebecca. Thank you, Jacqueline.

And welcome everyone. It's so wonderful to be here practicing with you. I was mentioning to Jacqueline before we started that late last week I was looking at a forecast of 12 inches of snow and I wasn't so sure if we could gather here and so causes and conditions come together to allow us to be here practicing together and it's a very joyful joyful moment thank you and also want to thank Jacqueline and Tashi for sharing with us today's artwork of a Loki Tejvara Bodhisattva, a very important Bodhisattva in my Chan tradition. And some of you may be quite familiar with the Heart Sutra that is very important in our tradition, in Chan. And the opening line of the Heart Sutra goes like this.

When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was causing in the Deep Prajnaparamita, he perceived that all five skandhas are empty, thereby transcending all suffering. And you can see I know it by heart. And this is one of the favorite lines of the sutra for me for many reasons. But what is relevant today is that, I don't know if you notice, the Heart Sutra is known as the Sutra of Cultivating Wisdom. Yet, the person who is featured here is the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Isn't that interesting? And then the rest of the Sutra was telling a teaching, Sariputra, who was the person who was known for his mastery of wisdom teaching.

So of course there are many ways to understand this, but the way I would like to highlight this is the fact that to embody compassion, to be able to treat all beings with loving kindness requires the cultivation of wisdom they are not separate, they are not separate at all and that's why we have Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara opening the sutra on wisdom and what does it mean by cultivating wisdom? cultivating wisdom.

It's pointing to this line, the understanding of the nature of existence as empty sunyata, that every moment is the coming together of constantly changing causes and conditions, and there is no inherently, independently existing entity whatsoever. But everything exists. It's not that nothing exists. Exists. We all exist here, right now. Just nothing that can be held onto at some inherently existing entity. And how do we realize this?

It is through the practice of cultivating moment to moment clear awareness. Moment to moment clear awareness. As in the practice of silent illumination, that's the focus of the book that Jacqueline talked about. When we allow ourselves to be with what is right now, moment to moment, as the Chan master who articulated the practice the silent illumination stated Stay with this Just as this

Stay with that just as that Then we are afforded an opportunity To see for ourselves that truly every moment is brand new Every moment is the coming together of causes and conditions. It's not hidden from us. We don't need to go somewhere really far away or try to understand some super deep, profound text. It's right here for us to directly see and realize when we remember to be here fully with the moment as it is.

And so in the practice we will be able to see for ourselves, indeed, every moment is sunyata, every moment is brand new, and thus it's very clear to us, impermanence, there's nothing to hold on to, yet everything exists. We can be fully engaged with the moment as it is. And in the practice of silent illumination, that cultivates this moment to moment clear awareness. How do we go about it? One way to articulate this practice that many practitioners find helpful, I share with you here.

After the mind settles with the method of meditation, we can also practice allowing whatever shows up in the present moment, let through. So when we're sitting, whatever comes through, allow it through. Oftentimes, many practitioners told me that is actually the most difficult step. That like let through like, the nice sensations I let through, the nice thoughts I let through, the not so nice thoughts, no way letting through. Like so, but there's like whatever shows up, let through, let through and let be. Allow, allow it to be fully felt and seen and heard.

Thoughts, feelings, whose feelings do you think they are? It's actually ourselves wanting to be heard fully as we are. But we often refuse to listen to ourselves, refuse to see ourselves, to feel ourselves fully. And when it is heard, it will on its own move on. We don't need to make it go away. It's like a let go. And most of us are like, I want to let go.

We want to skip the let through and let be. Actually, if we stay with each moment as it is, allowing through, allowing be, the letting go will naturally happen. So, some of my sangha members recently have been talking about sort of difficulty in dealing with strong emotions like anger and fear and don't quite know what to do with it. And if you think about this practice of silent delumination, then we can see that there is no need to be afraid or to block out of emotions like anger. And actually, we will use the same practice of let through, let be, let go.

But you may think, really? But like, I thought I'm not supposed to be angry. And if you look at the Buddha's teachings, the Buddha talked about, how do we go about the practice? Know clearly when there is anger. Moment to moment clear awareness. And know clearly when there is no anger. Because anger is not permanent like everything else. But we do need to know it when it's here, clearly. And then it passes away.

For us to see for ourselves is true nature of emptiness and impermanence. What that means is allow through, allow, let through, let the anger through, and allow it to be fully felt and seen and heard as it unfolds. And we allow us the opportunity to see its impermanence and also more importantly to realize that it is not a fixed characteristic of ours. It does not define us. It's here visiting and then it moves on. And when we stay with emotions that we often think should not be allowed, like anger, and fully experience it arising and it's passing away, we can also recognize that, hmm, this anger that's arising, perhaps there's also fear.

We're allowing that to be seen and felt as well. Pain, suffering. suffering. And that allows us the opportunity to give rise to this unconditional kindness. Think about it. When we notice that we've been hurt, maybe like we fell and got a big boo-boo on our knee when I was little, I did that a lot. What do we do? It's like, do we yell at ourselves, what is wrong with you?

You know, like you will feel, you will experience the pain from the fall. It's like, no, we hold this little kid. It's like, oh, does it hurt? It's okay. Actually, when there is anger, there's pain and hurt in our heart. But our usual reaction of blocking it out often at that time, probably harshly telling ourselves, what is wrong with you? You should not be angry. Cut it out! Shut up! Is that unconditional kindness? Probably make it feel more more hurtful. It's like our yelling at the kid who fell and hurt her knee.

Instead of harshly yelling at ourselves for experiencing anger, we can treat ourselves with unconditional kindness. Understand, yes, there is anger. And take good care of ourselves with this tender heart. This reminds me of a realization shared by one of the retreatants at the end of a seven-day retreat I led in early January after recognizing how much she had been into being so harsh at herself

and what she shared was so profound I want to share with you. We cannot hate ourselves to healing. This harshness, hateful attitude towards feelings that we experience blocks us from healing. Whereas this gentle, tender heart is what brings healing. Also when we are aware of the presence of emotions like anger,

it allows us to keep an eye on it. One of the most common reasons for people to want to block it out, I just talked to someone like that recently, who was in a very painful situation in his family. And he was so worried about acknowledging the anger that's arising in this painful situation because he's worried that it would overwhelm him. When in fact, when we allow it, allow that to be recognized, let through, we can keep an eye on it so that we do not get overwhelmed by it. It's counterintuitive It's like oh, yeah, it's here instead of pretending that it's not here When we pretend that it's not here by blocking it out of our awareness

We are likely allowing it to operate in the background without recognizing it, without our awareness. And so that's what he saw right away in this very painful situation in his family where family members dying because she refused treatment because she didn't believe in any medical treatment and missed a lot of opportunities for getting well and terminally ill, the anger, can you imagine? The pain. And he realized right away by blocking it out, he had been treating her from the place of anger without knowing when all he wanted was to love her. when all he wanted was to love her.

So, I share this story because we may think blocking our emotions like anger is so that we can avoid pain, but we can inadvertently be inflicting pain by allowing anger to operate, by allowing ourselves to act from the place of anger without knowing at all, without knowing that we are doing that at all. So what happens when we forget to practice cultivating moment to moment clear awareness, or think that it's a good idea to block our emotions like anger. Oftentimes we believe, yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do, to be calm all the time. And recently I had a practitioner that shared his story with me.

My sangha has been practicing with the various chapters in my book, Illumination, and they've been practicing with the chapter on the trance mode, which is about creating a foggy mind to obscure, oftentimes unpleasant, emotions and thoughts like anger, because we believe we are supposed to be calm all the time, not disturbed by strong emotions. And he shared this story of how he realized he loved using this mode and that he's been telling himself that he is totally fine with what's going on in the world, with all the upheaval. It's like, yeah, you just move on.

Not a problem, just I'm okay. But his father was not okay. His father was expressing a lot of frustration and anger. And he told his father, just move on. And he thought he was being a good practitioner. And after working with this chapter on the trance mode, he realized, oh dear, I have been fooling myself. I had been feeling a lot of anger that I'm not acknowledging.

And worse is that I made my father feel terrible because I made him feel that I'm better than him. You should just get over it. What is wrong with you still being angry? And he realized he was blocking himself from connecting with his natural capacity for compassion by blocking out these thoughts and feelings that are here and allowing it to run his life and operate him, causing hurtful feeling in the people dearest to him. So, I hope you can see how important it is

the practice of cultivating moment to moment clear awareness by relaxing into each emerging present moment and allowing whatever whatever shows up to be Allow them through, let through, let be and then allowing them to move on when they're ready to move on. Even though they do not fit our idea It is loving-kindness to ourselves. And we are allowing ourselves to reconnect with the natural capacity for loving-kindness to all beings.

So let's practice. Let's practice this together. I'd like to invite you to find yourself a comfortable posture. You may find it helpful to sit to the front edge of your chair so that your feet can rest firmly on the floor. That gives you more stability. And I will take you through a whole body relaxation in this guided meditation. Feel the relaxation of the sensations of the scalp relaxing. As we allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the eyeballs and eye muscles. We often hold a lot of tension in this area from all the

analyzing, comparing, judging, planning. And right here, right now. There is no need to do that. We can give these muscles a vacation and feel the relaxation spread to the facial muscles check to see if we hold tension in some part of our face by habit perhaps to hold a certain facial expression for the world to see Right here, right now there is no need to do that we can give these muscles a vacation and allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the entire head And feel the relaxation spread to the neck and shoulder muscles

directly experience the subtle sensations of these muscles softening like melting butter As we allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation down to the fingertips. And feel the relaxation spread to the chest area. to the chest area. Check to see if we hold tension in this area by habit. Perhaps from anxiety, sadness,

grief, fear. And right here, right now, we can give them a rest. And allow, allow the tension to melt away And feel the relaxation spread down the torso All the way down to the lower abdomen. Trust that the skeletal structure can hold up the body. And these muscles do not need to work so hard. We can give these muscles a vacation too. And allow, allow the tension to melt away.

And feel the relaxation spread to the upper back. Directly experience the subtle sensations of these muscles softening like melting butter as we allow allow the tension to melt away And feel the relaxation spread down the back, to seat. And feel the relaxation spread down to the thigh muscles, and down the legs, and all the way down to the toes. of the entire body sitting right here right now. Moment after moment with this wakeful clear mind. And as we do so, we notice the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing.

And we can gently rest our attention on the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing to gently anchor us to each emerging present moment, allowing the body to breathe on its own. And when we notice the mind drifting off, losing contact with the direct experience of the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing. Not a problem. as an opportunity to practice remembering to come back, to reconnect with the direct experience of the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing. Doesn't matter how often the mind drifts off, as long as we find our to time, we may notice thoughts or feelings coming to visit.

Allow them through. They are already part of the present moment. Blocking the mouth only tense up and agitates the mind and allow them to be fully felt and seen and heard and hurt as it unfolds moment to moment without needing to change it or talk back at it or analyze it. And when it's ready to move on, allow it to move on. Allow it to move on. Moment after moment, cultivate this total clear awareness of the body-mind sitting in this space......... Maintain this clear awareness as we transition from stillness to motion. Stay with the changing sensations as of awareness of the present moment. 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 RubinMuseum.org slash friends. 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 4, hosted by Isabella Rossellini, delves into the Buddhist concept of attachment and explores how the practice of letting go can transform our experience of the world. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. And to learn more about the Rubin Museum's work around the world, visit rubinmuseum.org. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.