Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Rebecca Li 12/12/2022

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

Theme: GratitudeArtwork: Vasudhara, Goddess of Abundance; Nepal; 17th century; gilt copper alloy; Rubin Museum of Art; http://therubin.org/365 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 17:50.  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, Tashi Chodron. 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 supported by the Frederick Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism. And now, please enjoy your practice. Tashi Derlek and welcome. Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online with Rubin Museum of Art. I am Tashi Chodron and I'm so happy to be your host today. Thank you so much for posting where you're joining from. I see Brooklyn, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Seattle, Silver Springs, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and from all over Manhattan, San Francisco, Wisconsin, and wow, someone as far as Scotland. Thank you so much for joining.

Wow, someone as far as Scotland. Thank you so much for joining. And for those of you who are first time, we are a Museum of Himalayan Art and Ideas in New York City. And we are so glad to have all of you join us for our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online. Inspired from our collection, we will take a look at work of art from our collection. We will hear a brief talk from our teacher, and then we will have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes, for the meditation guided by our teacher. Now, let's take a look at today's theme and artwork.

The theme this month is gratitude. As we are coming to an end of the year, I want to personally thank each and every one of you for your support in joining us in our weekly mindfulness sessions. The art connection for today's session is this beautiful Vasudhara, Goddess of Abundance. Vasudhara, whose name means stream of gems in Sanskrit. In Tibetan, she's known as Norjunma, stream of wealth, prosperity, abundance. This beautiful sculpture is from Nepal, 17th century gilt copper alloy, about seven and half into five and a half inches sculpture. This is not on view in the gallery.

The connection to the theme is the expression of gratitude towards wealth, prosperity. Vasudhara is one of the most popular goddesses worshipped in many Buddhist countries and is a subject of Buddhist legends and art. This beautiful sculpture may have been set up in either a home shrine or a monastery where devotees would pray to her for wealth, prosperity and children. Yes, those who are not able to conceive pray to goddess Vasudhara for a child. Vasudhara has many forms and is also depicted as the consort of Zambala, another important wealth deity in Buddhism. Her left leg folded and right leg extended as you see here. This position is known as royal ease position.

In each of her six arms, she holds objects pertaining to life and abundance, jewels, and overflowing pot. Lower right hand is open with her palm facing upward, resting on her right knee facing upward, resting on her right knee, is in a gesture of giving, often known as supreme generosity, while her middle left hand holds a rice stalk. After the rice is harvested, her image is placed upon piles of rice stalks as a means of expressing gratitude for the abundance of the season. Her body appears yellow, much like rice stalks with yellow also being the color of prosperity and abundance. Her name means shower of wealth and is worshipped after the rice harvest. Goddess Vasudhara is associated with the autumn in the Kathmandu Valley. Now let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher today is Dr. Rebecca Lee. Dr. Rebecca Lee, a Dharma lineage holder of Chan Master Shen

Yen, is the founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma community. She started practicing with Master Shen 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. Currently, she teaches meditation and Dharma classes, gives public lectures, and leads retreats in North America and the UK. Her talks and writings can be found at rebeccalee.org. She's a sociology professor at the College of New Jersey, where she also serves as faculty director of the Alan Dowdy Center for the Study of Social Justice. Her new book is Allow Joy Into Our Hearts, Chan Practice in Uncertain Times. Thank you so much, Dr. Rebecca Lee, for being here.

Thank you so much, Tashi and everyone for being here. It's really lovely to be here practicing with all of you. And this month's theme Tashi, for the beautiful description, introduction of the artwork today on abundance and very much related to gratitude. And when we think about gratitude, it really is this appreciative heart that we are experiencing. heart that we are experiencing. It is the quality of mind that actually can be cultivated through practice. And when we cultivate this appreciative mind, we can, we are really cultivating like this antidote to this unhelpful habits of suffering right the suffering the habit of suffering is a habit of where we feel whatever is happening in the present moment is not good

enough something is not good enough i want something to be more or the different and this is the experience of suffering and as as you know, if you have experienced this suffering, you know that it makes us miserable, and often it compels us to act in a way that causes harm to others. So when we engage in practice of meditation, what we do is we use the method of meditation to settle down the mind. And by using the bodily sensations such as our breath to maintain contact with each emerging present moment and do so gently. And when we do this moment after moment, the mind will settle naturally. And when the mind settles, then the mind becomes clear. And with this clear awareness,

we can be fully here. And this allows us to recognize and connect with all the causes and conditions that make this moment possible. So I'm going to invite you to join me here, this moment of being here in this mindfulness meditation workshop, and all the causes and conditions that make it possible. For example, that we are healthy enough today. Our body has been nour very hard in organizing and attending to many, many details behind the scenes to make this workshop run smoothly. And also, of course, our internet works, the technology works, our computer is running the way we hope it to,

running the way we hope it to so that we can join this workshop. Of course, all the other participants who join us in this practice today and also many, many past sessions so that everyone feels inspired to continue to have this practice opportunity together. So I take great joy in seeing many participants saying hi, where they are coming from, and many participants joining from all over the country. And so when we allow this clear awareness to let us connect with all the causes and conditions coming together to make this present moment possible, we realize that this moment is a miracle. And when we connect with this feeling that this moment really is a miracle as all these causes and conditions come together. And this appreciative heart arises naturally.

We're feeling so blessed, this sense of abundance of all the wonderful things going right, happening to make this possible. And it's allowed us to connect with contentment and joy in our hearts. As we do not feel the sense of deprivation or sense of not having enough, sense of whatever is happening in this moment is not good enough. It's like, we just feel this is so, what a miracle to be here, that all of this is coming together. what a miracle to be here that all of this is coming together.

And so we can connect with and cultivate this appreciative heart by practicing being fully here with our body and mind in this space, moment after moment, cultivating this clear awareness of all the causes and conditions coming together to make this moment possible. And as we practice this way, cultivate our mind this way, we will notice that the moment we remember to practice with this full presence and clear awareness of moment-to-moment emergence of causes and conditions, this gratitude arises.

And it is a natural rising of this appreciative heart. It's not something contrived, telling ourselves, I should feel grateful. And also we will notice that in some moments, we may forget, maybe because we're busy, or we're distracted. And then we forget to practice, we forget to be fully here in this present moment. And the mind's agitated. and we notice ourselves falling into the very entrenched habits of nitpicking the present moment. And that's the moment when we disconnect from this appreciative heart and gratitude. So when we notice this, how it changes moment to moment, then we also recognize that every moment we can choose to come back to reconnect with the practice of being fully here,

directly experiencing the body and mind in this space, moment after moment, to allow gratitude to arise. Now, as you notice, what we are talking about is not this idea of forcing ourselves to be grateful. ourselves to be grateful. You might have yourself experience this idea of like, oh, you should be grateful, you know, or other people had it much worse than you. And when we, there might be moments you feel like, I don't feel grateful. In fact, I don't want to force myself to feel grateful. And it is helpful to remember that when we are disconnected from gratitude, this naturally arising from the full presence that brings appreciation, feeling our heart. These are moments when we are suffering.

Oftentimes that happens when we are tired or when we are stressed, the mind is agitated. So if we try to tell ourselves that you should be grateful, it's a way of being very harsh and judgmental to ourselves. And it is not kindness to ourselves. to ourselves. And it is not kindness to ourselves. And in fact, it is not very helpful, oftentimes quite counterproductive, kind of causing ourselves to not want to feel grateful even further and suffering more. And here, I'd like to share with you a couple of lines from my root teacher, Master Shen Yan. Here he says, if you haven't ever suffered, you cannot sympathize with others who are suffering. I want to share these two lines with you because when we remember these two lines, because when we remember these two lines,

and then in the moments we are suffering, and we cannot feel gratitude, we can remember that actually suffering is okay because it helps us empathize with other people. To remember that we all suffer as human beings. And actually, our experience of suffering allows us to fully connect with our fellow human beings so we do not feel so alone. And to be able to fully know our suffering, it allows our empathy and compassion to arise. Instead of being judgmental or rejecting others and feeling disconnected,

we actually allows us to suffer less and also cause less suffering to others. And so when we remember this in moments of our suffering, of being disconnected from gratitude, actually gratitude arises naturally when we notice this. So when we can practice with this attitude, we don't need to fear or hate suffering. Because as we cultivate gratitude we can remember to be fully present with the present moment experience of suffering

instead of trying to resist or block it out because it's already part of the present moment and our clear awareness of how our habitual reactivity shows up in all kinds of stories, maybe thought patterns, maybe strong compulsive feelings, then we can realize that we don't need to let them take over. And we don't need to let them take over and we don't need to add them out and we don't need to add more fuel to what is unfolding. Instead, what we can do is to allow these thoughts and feelings to be fully felt and seen

and then be discharged, freeing ourselves from the unhelpful habits of suffering. So when we practice this way, we can allow gratitude to arise regardless of our circumstances. When things are going well, we can have gratitude for all the causes and conditions coming together that make this moment possible. So we do not become arrogant. And when we are facing adversity, we can give gratitude for the opportunity to practice in the face of adversity and to grow in wisdom and compassion. So let's start practicing some meditation together. I'd like to invite you to put your body in a comfortable posture, conducive to relaxation.

conducive to relaxation. And I take you through a whole body relaxation. Feel the relaxation of the top of the head. Directly experience the subtle sensations of our scalp relaxing as we allow allow the tension to melt away and feel the relaxation

spread to the forehead. And feel the relaxation spread to the eyeballs and eye muscles. and eye muscles. We hold a lot of tension in this area by habits in our daily life from all the analyzing,

judging, comparing. And right here, right now, there is no need to do that. comparing right here, right now. There is no need to do that. We can give these muscles a vacation and allow allow the tension

to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the facial muscles. Check to see if we are holding tension in some part of our face by habit. Perhaps to hold a certain facial expression. face by habit. Perhaps to hold a certain facial expression for others to see. Right here,

right now. There is no need to do that. And we can give these muscles a vacation and allow And we can give these muscles a vacation. And allow, allow the tension to melt away. And feel the relaxation spread to the entire head.

And feel the relaxation. Spread down the neck muscles. Down to the shoulder muscles. Directly experience the subtle sensations of these muscles softening like melting butter. As we allow, allow the tension to melt away.

Feel the relaxation spread down the arms down to the forearms and all the way down to the fingertips and feel the relaxation spread to the chest area. Check to see if we hold tension

in this area by habit. Maybe from anxiety, sadness, grief, fear, worry. 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 and all the way down to the lower abdomen. Trust that the skeletal structure can hold up the body. And these lower abdominal muscles do not need to work so hard. We can give these muscles a vacation too.

we can give these muscles a vacation too and alone allow the tension to melt away and feel the relaxation spread to the upper back. Directly experience the subtle sensations of these muscles softening as we allow the tension

to melt away and feel the relaxation spread down the back to the lower back, and all the way down to the buttocks, where we feel the sensations of the body sitting on the seat. And feel the relaxation spread down to the thigh muscles,

and down the legs and all the way down to the toes. And feel the relaxation of the entire body sitting right here, right now. Moment after moment with this clear wakeful mind and as we do so we'll notice the subtle changing sensations

of the body moving as it breathes with the expansion and contraction of the diaphragm and the ribcage. We can rest our attention on the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing moment after moment. of the body breathing moment after moment

to anchor our mind to each emerging present moment allowing the body to breathe on its own. The body knows how to breathe. It's doing so since the moment we were born. All we need to do is to be here, directly experiencing the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing. and you may notice sometimes the mind drifts off, losing contact

with the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing. Not a problem. We can use that as an opportunity to practice remembering to come back

to reconnect with the subtle changing sensations of the body breathing it doesn't matter how often or how long the mind drifts off

as long as we find our way back to the method we are practicing well. We notice thoughts, story, memories rising in the mind. Not a problem. That too is part of the present moment. Allow them to be there. Allow them to be fully

felt and seen and heard. There's no need to engage with them, talk back at them. And when they're ready to move on, they move on on their own and allow them to move on. Moment after moment.

Cultivate this clear awareness. Of our body-mind. Sitting in this space. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to make a Maintain this clear awareness as we transition from stillness to motion emotion by moving our palms slowly and rotate our body from a small circle into bigger and bigger circles. And maintain this clear awareness of the changing sensations as the body moves. as the body moves. And this will allow us to take the clarity and stability of mind cultivated in sitting meditation

into our life-lived emotion. Thank you so much for that beautiful session, Dr. Rebecca Lee. That concludes this week's practice. If you would like to support the Ruben and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member of the Ruben. If you're 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 two, hosted by Raveena Arora, is out now and explores the transformative power of emotions using a mandala as a guide. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.