Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Reverend Doyeon Park 10/23/2025

Episode Date: October 31, 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 14:00.Teacher: Reverend Doyeon ParkTheme: Fluidity Coral Mask of Begtse; Mongolia; early 20th century; papier-mâché, coral, metal, fabric; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; C2006.41.1a-kLearn 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, everyone, and welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program here at New York Insight Meditation Center. My name is Tim McHenry.

I'm a founding staff member of the Rubin and a curator of the Mundal Lab. And about a year ago, we announced, or rather, left our resident building on West 17th Street in order to meet the world. And there's a tradition in the Himalayas of the Lama Mani, the itinerant teacher who packs a few tankers in his knapsack and travels from village to village over the mountain passes and in the village square unfurls the tanker and says, gather around, this is what the Buddha said. And so we have adopted that tradition as ours and go from village to village, city to city, unfurling tankers in Gainesville, Florida, St. Olaf, Minnesota, and in the village known as the Insight Meditation Center right here in New York City, where we're very happy to have been presenting mindfulness meditation for the past year. So the brief here is that we take a look at a work of art in our collection that we've chosen for today, and then we'll hear a brief talk from our teacher, Reverend Adoyan Park,

and then we'll have a short sit of about 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation that is guided by her today. So let's take a look at our theme and artwork of today. So this rather forbidding mask is known as the mask of Bechse, and it's from Mongolia. And our theme is about fluidity. So you might be asking yourselves, what is this rather fierce, looking image got to do with fluidity. Well, the mask is made up of pieces of coral. And he puts to how many pieces of coral might be embedded in the surface of this mask. Any guesses? You don't win a prize, so you don't have to make an effort. It's okay. But it's 6,000 is

estimated. That's quite a lot and makes the mask very heavy and quite a burden to wear. But it is worn in a chum dance or chum dance known in the Tibetan, which is a mass ritual dance that is really made to subjugate ignorance and the energies of distraction and disturbance in order that you might reach enlightenment. Now, the coral, interestingly enough, of course, is born in water. and water is the emblem of fluidity. And you can see there are two lotus blossoms handcrafted by Reverend Park herself that she brought here last time she gave a teaching.

So a lotus is also born out of water and basically Buddhism is about how to swim and not sink. It's my delight to be able to welcome back to this session, Reverend Doyen Park. Thank you so much for being here at Reverend Park. Reverend Park is a Goyam Yuenim, which means that she devotes herself to the teaching of the Dharma. And since 2008, she's served as Minister of the Manhattan One Buddhist Temple, and as the one Buddhism representative to the United Nations, among many other positions. What makes Reverend Park's teaching special is that she is a very practical.

as you'll come to discover. And she likes to be able to integrate Buddhist teachings in the practicalities of life. And the practicalities of life requires to be adaptive and fluid in order to navigate these vicissitudes that we confront us all the time. So it's really, really special

that we can welcome her back to Insight Meditation Center here in New York to guide us fluidly through what we what we could be doing with our lives. Reverend Park, thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for the beautiful introduction. Yeah, when I first heard our theme for this month is fluidity, right?

When I just heard that, the first image came to my mind was water. And growing up in Asia, I have heard so many wise people talk a lot about the virtues of water. A lot of people say, you know, live like water. Even my father used to say that, you live like water. Water is soft and yet strong. it's humble yet very persistent so water does not resist the shape of containers you know whichever container you bring it water will just fill in and water does not fight against the rocks in its path so it simply flows

and I remember as a young person I'm living like water I was like oh that must be you're saying that'll just accept whatever comes into your life and I was a little bit of kind of hesitant to that a little bit of resistant to that

because I want to fight for my life but then again yes it doesn't really mean that being passive or indifferent A lot of wise people say, when they say live like water, again, it's about the quiet, steady strength. Again, it's soft, but water is not only soft. It's very strong. As we see, you know, over the time, it can even wear down what once seemed unmovable. And here's the first thing we need to understand about this whole life,

in which I think the Buddhist practice begins with this simple yet profound recognition of the changing nature of reality. So Buddha's teaching begins with simple understanding or observance, awareness that life, there is inevitable dukkah, dissatisfactions, there's inevitable nature of this impermanence, simply pointing that everything changes, our body changes, right, our thoughts, our emotions, everything, you know, from time to time it changes. We can see from the nature, it's a beautiful season here that we see all this color leaves the changes here, day and night changes.

everything. There are relationships and conditions changing here. And it is critical to have the right understanding of the nature of reality. And I was thinking, why? Why is it important to have the right understanding what the Buddha taught right view or right understanding? Why is it? I guess simply, I think we all know that. Because all of our life, day-to-day, day-to-day decisions, choices that we make, everything reflects our view, our understanding of the nature of reality. I often say this to my fellow practitioners. Simply put it this way. If you put salt in your tea and expecting it to be sweet, it's not going to happen, right? You will be disappointed. Because the nature of salt is to be salty, not to be sweet.

If you plant the seed in the morning and expect the flower by the afternoon, probably you will be disappointed because it's not going to happen. It takes some time just for the nature of reality. If you go into the post office expecting to find, fix your cell phone, you're not going to get that done. And it sounds a little kind of funny, but I was looking at myself. I think we all do those things in our life. Like we want so much possessions or we want other people's approval thinking that they will bring

us some, the peace in our life. And then maybe we compare our worst day with someone else's best moment and thinking that, wow, why my life is this small petty and why I'm not in a good place, not understanding, not realizing, or I would say not remembering every one of us, we all go through a difficult time. And then my teacher often said that, you know what, a lot of people, we all do not like suffering. But in fact, when you really look at our day-to-day life, but we love the cause of suffering, meaning that we, you know, we love to be, a lot of us, we become very greedy. Again, we want more positions, we want more recognitions, we want more controls.

not understanding those things are indeed the cause of our suffering. That is why often I see, wow, right, having the right understanding of the nature of reality is the key. So that if we see this changing nature in our life, then our practice begins with understanding this first changing nature of reality. and second, we will learn how to live with it. With this theme, just like living like water, again, it means that we learn how to cope with whatever comes into our life, whatever passes by in our life. So that maybe in our practice this fluidity,

maybe means nurturing this mind that can move freely without being so much attached or without being resisting to our life. So I believe that's the beauty of fluidity in our life. Again, it helps us to experience the joy, not being too attached to it. We can also experience the pain in our life, not resisting it, not running away. If we have to go through, then we have the space to experience all these pain and sufferings and the joys and pleasurable moments in our life. So I guess through this practice, again, we learn how to cope with this life.

And then I guess our practice is, again, a reminder that we have this inner ability to actually live this life with this soft and yet strong sense of regime. distance, or this sense of the mind that can move freely. We will go through some practice with this understanding. So as we move into the meditation, I invite you to bring the spirit of fluidity into your breath and into your awareness. So let the mind be like water, flowing gently with whatever arise, and soft yet strong. Water, it's humble and yet steady. Now let us settle into a comfortable posture.

Allow your spine to be upright yet relaxed. The shoulders soft. The hands rest easily. If it feels comfortable, gently close your eyes or keep them half open, resting your gaze. softly in front of you. Take a deep, slow breath in and a long, easy breath out. Let the breath return to its natural rhythm.

And begin to notice the gentle rise and fall of your breathing, the body's natural flow. There's no need to control it. Just allow it to come and to go like the waves meeting the shore. As you breathe, feel your body softened, the face, the jaw, the face, the jaw, the neck, and release any tension there. And feel your belly rise and fall with each breath. Let the whole body begin to feel fluid and at ease. Now bring your attention to the mind itself.

Notice thoughts moving through, like clouds drifting across the sky. They come, they go, changing shape and changing tone. You don't need to chase them or push them away. Simply let them flow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If emotions arise, See if you can meet them with the same gentle awareness. Joy, worry, and calm, and everything has its own place.

Nothing needs to be fixed or resisted. Just as water takes the shape of what it meets, your awareness holds you whatever appears without struggle, without judgment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. If you find your solve cut in a thought or story. Imagine returning to the current of the breath. Simply coming back to your breath is the practice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Feel the the breath moving through the body like water. Washing away tension, clearing space, renewing life with every cycle. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, Bring the mind to the mind the changing nature of life itself. The movement of seasons, the passing of time,

the way everything arises and phase. See if you can rest in that truth. not fighting the current, but flowing with it. As you sit here, Remember, fluidity is not weakness, it is the strength to adopt with awareness, to bend without breaking, to stay open when the hearts wants to close. And for the next few breaths, rest in this quiet space, aware, Open and fluid. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As we need. the end of our meditation. You can return to the feelings in your body, noticing the

breath, the sounds around you. Take a deep, steady breath in, and a long, easy breath out. You may bring your palms together and then bow honoring your practice, this space that support us. You can gently open your eyes. Thank you. That image that you brought to mind of our awareness taking the shape of water and adapting and assuming the form of whatever it meets, whatever it attends to, is one that will stay with me. stay with me. Thank you so much, Reverend. 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 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 Rubin Museum's work around the world, visit rubinmuseum.org. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.