Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Rebecca Li 05/03/2021

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Theme: Awareness Artwork: Manjushri; Tibet; 19th century; metal alloy; Rubin Museum of Art; gift of Shelley and Donald Rubin; 2013.9a-c [http://therubin.org/31x] ; Teacher: Rebecca Li The Rubin Museum presents a weekly online 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 a recording of the live online session and includes an opening talk and 20-minute sitting session. The guided meditation begins at 19:53. This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. To attend a Mindfulness Meditation online session in the future 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, Dawn Eshelman. Every Monday 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 practice, currently held virtually. 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 Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. And now, please enjoy your practice. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online with the Rubin Museum of Art. I'm Dawn Eshleman. Great to be here with you. We are, of course, a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City. So glad to have all of you joining us from all the corners. have all of you joining us from all the corners and great to be here to practice together during our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online. And a couple invitations

for you before we dig in here. First, we are open. The museum is open and we are happy to say that folks are coming in even in this reduced capacity to enjoy a very quiet spacious museum experience and to take a look at Awaken our new exhibition about a Tibetan Buddhist journey towards enlightenment which explores these steps in the journey of self-knowledge and transformation from chaos to awakening and everything in between. And we're taking our themes for our practice here in these few months inspired from that exhibition. So we'll take a look at a work of art. We'll hear a brief talk from our teacher who is today the wonderful Rebecca Lee and then we'll have a short sit together 15 or 20 minutes. So let's take a look together at a work of art. We're looking today at this beautiful and stunning sculpture that is one of our our jewels in our collection. This is Manjushri.

And this is from Tibet, 19th century, metal alloy. And it's quite large, makes quite an impact where it is seen, which sometimes is in our shrine room. Manjushri is one of the most important and iconic figures in Mahayana Buddhism and is known as the Bodhisattva of Great Wisdom. So you can see the Bodhisattva indications there with the crown bejeweled, some jewelry here, and seated on the lotus throne in a meditative posture with four arms, right? own in a meditative posture with four arms, right? And this kind of halo of flames intricate behind his head. In one of the four arms, we can see that Manjushri raises a Vajra sword. This is a sword discriminating light and awareness. So that's what we're talking about this month. We're talking about this idea of

awareness because it's actually considered to be the first step on the path towards enlightenment, simply cultivating awareness and something that's practiced throughout. And the sword symbolizes that ability to cut through ignorance, to cut through delusions, and to have this insight, wisdom that Manjushri has here. So let's bring on our teacher today, the wonderful Rebecca Lee, who is a Dharma heir in the lineage of Chan Master Shingen and the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma community. She started practicing with Master Sheng Yen in the 1990s and served as his translator until his passing in 2009. She later trained with and received full Dharma transmission from one of his Dharma heirs, Dr. Simon Child in 2016. And currently she teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures, leads retreats in North America and the UK. You can find out lots about

her, including her writings and talks on at RebeccaLee.org. She is also a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey, where she also serves as faculty director of the Alan Dully Center for the Study of Social Justice. So her new book, which comes from some of her talks with her students, is called Allow Joy into Our Hearts, Chan Practice in Uncertain Times. Rebecca Lee, welcome. Great to have you here. Wonderful to be here with you. Thank you, Dawn, for your kind introduction and very happy to be here practicing with everyone. And as in the introduction by Dawn about this sculpture of Manjushri, about wisdom and cultivating awareness being an important first step.

And awareness, it's easy to have this misunderstanding that awareness is something we don't have and we have to cultivate and get it. In fact, as human beings, we have the natural ability to be aware, to be fully aware already. This total clear awareness that is part of wisdom that allows us to directly experience the true nature of reality, seeing it as it is, which is to see that every moment is the coming together of many causes and conditions that are constantly changing. When we remember this, that we know we are truly interconnected, which we often forget. And also remembering and realizing that every moment we are co-creating with each other, this emerging present moment. then you become very clear to us that taking care, taking care of you,

it's not different from taking care of myself, loving myself. And so this compassion naturally arise with this wisdom from clear awareness. What happens is that even though human beings have this natural ability to be aware, we have developed a good number of unhelpful habits. We call these habitual tendencies. That involves turning this constant flow of causes and conditions coming together into fixed, independently existing entities in our mind. Very often they show up as concepts and ideas about reality. And in turn, they create these distorted views we hold about other people, about situation, about reality. And then we also develop the habit of aversion, giving rise to aversion or craving and suffering.

Suffering being the habit of feeling that whatever is in the present moment, that something is wrong with it. Because we are comparing what is emerging in the present moment with an idea that we have held up in our mind about what the present moment is supposed to be. And thus, we end up in perpetual state of unsatisfactoriness, dukkha. So the practice, Chan practice, or Buddhist practice, is to unlearn these unhelpful habits that blocks us from being fully here, being with this open, total, clear awareness

that is the natural capacity of human being. So the other way to understand what we're doing here in the practice is to help us reconnect with our natural ability, to reconnect with our Buddha nature. This Buddha nature being the potential to be fully aware, to be fully here, fully present. be fully here, fully present. And some of you who have read or heard about the content of the Heart Sutra might have heard this, that this clear awareness is already here. So in the Heart Sutra, towards the end, it says there is nothing to attain. We are not here trying to acquire something that is not already here. So what we do in our practice is really to first start with recognizing what is already here. What is already here? This body, this body we have that is already right here. So if you take a moment to be with your body,

you recognize that it's already here and it is our friend in the practice that anchors us to each emerging present moment. Because if you really think about it, the body can only be here in the present moment. The body cannot be in the past, nor can it be in the future. It's only here. So every moment we connect fully with this body, we are here. And you notice that many meditation methods, it's about connecting us to the body. So when we engage in meditative practice, what we're doing, for example, if you're doing the breathing method or body awareness method,

what we are doing is to practice staying with the changing sensations of the body breathing naturally or when we're moving about cultivating maintaining this clear awareness of the changing sensations of the body moving walking or in the moment many of you may be able to do that, eating. Really aware of the changing sensations of food, its texture, its temperature, its taste, as we chew each bite of our food, moment after moment. When we remember to practice this way, what we'll be able to do is to directly experience how every moment is truly the coming together of many causes and conditions.

Every moment is the coming together of the body, mind, and the surrounding. So right here, right now, you can do that to experience this moment, what we're just talking about easily. So for example, you know, I know many of you come from different parts of the country or the world, right here now in New Jersey, it is overcast. So the outside environment, there's this overcast weather, and maybe wherever you are, you have blue sky, sunny, maybe it's rainy, and you can connect with that. And you notice how this environment actually shapes the light quality of the light from the weather, sort of like shapes our mood, the state of the mind a little bit when it's overcast.

Sort of like it feels a little bit like lower energy. Maybe it will then in turn sort of like cast a little bit of a shadow on how we feel about what we're doing today, about the world, everything we read and hear about. Maybe we'll notice that on a very bright and sunny day, the mood is slightly different. And so in mode, when we observe and stay with the changing sensations of our body-mind in this space, we'll be able to notice how every moment is truly the coming together of many causes and conditions, and every moment is brand new.

what happens is when we forget to practice, when we forget to maintain and cultivate this clear awareness of the changing sensation experience of every moment of our body and mind, we fall into the habits, which is a very entrenched habit. You can see if you notice that. Fall into this habit of believing that we already know. We already know that this moment is just the same old thing. Same old. So some people I've heard that in the pandemic, every day is the same because you don't get to go on vacation or go do other things. And when this thought arises, what happens is that we stop paying attention to what is right here emerging in the present moment as the body and mind and the environment comes together in this space. And what we do instead is to substitute our idea,

our idea of perhaps a person in front of us, or our idea of a particular situation, maybe a home situation or work situation, situation, maybe a home situation or work situation, for what is actually right here in the present moment. So you might have experienced that yourself. So when we are interacting with another person, because we are not fully here assuming that we already know. We substitute our idea of that person. We do not fully listen to what they are saying.

We are not fully present here with them. We do not really see them as who they are in this present moment. We believe we already know what we are seeing is our pre-existing idea of that person, perhaps from past experience. Instead of fully seeing and hearing the actual living, breathing person right here in front of us. And we do that quite a lot if we really reflect on this. Maybe our, especially our loved ones, people we spend a lot of time with, that we fall into this habit of taking them for granted and instead of being fully present with them. And as a result, these individuals feel unseen, unheard,

do not feel fully understood, unheard, do not feel fully understood, and can be quite painful or at least feeling unloved. So we can see that cultivating this total clear awareness really is what allows us to truly love and connect fully with another human being. By unlearning this unhelpful habit of believing that I already know, so that I don't need to pay attention to the actual person here. And when we allow ourselves to be fully here, then we can feel, we can tell what is unsaid, how that person actually is feeling in this present moment, and be here for them. When we cultivate this clear total awareness of what is going on in a situation, it may be a home situation, it may be a relationship situation or work situation, then we are not being blocked or distorted by our preconceived notion of what's going on. We can see clearly what is actually going on in this emerging present moment.

Then we will notice that what needs to be done becomes very clear. And we experience less confusion in life. As a result, we also give rise to less suffering and cause less problems for others in our life, become an easier person to live with, and perhaps cause less misunderstanding, less conflict, more love, more connection. And we have this greater capacity conditionally kind to each other while doing what needs to be done in the present situation. In other words, we can live with more wisdom and compassion. So that is what we are doing when we engage in the meditative practice of settling the mind, cultivating this clear total awareness. So let's take some time to engage in the practice of sitting meditation to learn how to engage in this practice of cultivating clear awareness.

So I'd like to invite you to sit in a posture that is comfortable and facilitating whole body relaxation. When we allow the body to relax, the mind can also relax because the body and mind are connected. When we do this, we are already here. When we do this, we are already here. Make such an adjustment to our posture. And I take you through a whole body relaxation. We can practice cultivating this clear awareness of the changing sensations of the body.

Feel the relaxation of the sensations of the scalp as we allow, allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the forehead. spread to the forehead. Check to see if you're holding tension in this area by habit, perhaps from worrying. And allow, allow the tension to melt away.

And feel the relaxation spread to the eyeballs and eye muscles. We hold a lot of tension in these areas by habit from all the judging comparing analyzing planning in our daily life right here right now we don't need to do that. And we can give these muscles a vacation and allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the facial muscles. Check to see if we're holding tension in these muscles by habit.

Perhaps from wanting to hold up 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 too and allow the tension to melt away. Allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the entire head. Feel the relaxation spread to the neck 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 arms to the forearms and all the way spread to the chest area. Check to see if we are holding tension in this area by habit, maybe from anxiety or sadness, grief, sorrow, or fear, or worry. or fear, or worry. Right here, right now, you can give them a rest and allow, allow the tension to melt away.

Allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down the torso to the lower abdomen. We often hold a lot of tension in these lower abdominal muscles in our daily life by habit. Trust that the skeletal structure can hold up the body. And these muscles do not need to work so hard. We can give them a vacation too. And allow, allow the tension to melt away. Allow the tension to melt away.

And feel the relaxation spread to the upper back. In the muscles between the shoulder blades, where we hold a lot of tension by habit. Trusting that the skeletal structure can hold up the body. We can give these muscles a vacation and allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread down the back to the lower back, all the way down on the chair or cushion and feel the relaxation spread down to the thigh muscles

and down the legs, all the way down to the toes. And feel the relaxation of the entire body sitting right here right now moment after moment we cultivate this wakeful mind, gentle wakefulness. The subtle changing sensations as the body breathes. We allow, allow the body to breathe on its own. The body knows how to breathe.

It's been doing so since the moment we were born. And we can stay, stay with the changing sensations of the body breathing. Moment after moment gently resting our attention on the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing of the body breathing, anchoring,

anchoring ourselves to each emerging present moment this way. And you will notice the mind drifting off, losing contact with the direct experience of the changing sensations of the body breathing right here, right now. right here, right now. And maybe notice thoughts coming through, feelings, fragments of memory. Allow it.

That too is part of this emerging present moment and allow them to be fully experienced and heard and seen and when it's time for them to move on, allow them to move on. Moment after moment, right now, moment after movement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. And thank you, everyone. We'll be here next week with Sharon Salzberg. Have a wonderful week. That concludes this week's practice. If you would like to support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member. Thank you for listening.