Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Sharon Salzberg 03/09/2020

Episode Date: March 7, 2020

Theme: Rebirth Artwork: Stories of Previous Lives of the Buddha [http://therubin.org/2z5] Teacher: Sharon Salzberg "There's nothing wrong to feel, but if you get enveloped in each feeling, then there's not enough space to have insight and clarity develop." -- Sharon Salzberg The Rubin Museum of Art presents a weekly 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 recorded in front of a live audience and includes an opening talk and 20-minute sitting session. The guided meditation begins at 22:02. This meditation is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, teachers from the NY Insight Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. To attend the Mindfulness Meditation sessions at the Rubin Museum in Chelsea, New York City, 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 attend in person 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, that connects visitors to the art and ideas of the Himalayas and serves as a space for reflection and transformation. I'm your host, Dawn Eshelman. Every Monday, we present a meditation session inspired by a different artwork from the Rubens Collection and led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area. This podcast is a recording of our weekly practice. 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. If you'd like to join us in person, please visit our website at rubinmuseum.org slash meditation. And now, please enjoy your practice. And now, please enjoy your practice. This experience of beginning again in our practice as well.

And we're also just after the Tibetan New Year celebration, Losar. And today is the 15th day of Losar, which is known to be a very auspicious day where any good deed that you do will be magnified many times. So keep that in mind as you take your meditation practice out into the world with you. We're looking at a beautiful thangka from the 18th century. This is stories of previous lives of the Buddha. And no one knows for sure how many times the Buddha was reincarnated, how many lives the Buddha lived. At first, we had 34 Jataka tales.

And those are stories of the Buddha's life. And then later it expanded to 108. And now there are over, I believe, 550 stories of the Buddha's previous lives. And he lived everything, lives of animals, lives of humans. He lived everything from the life of a potter's son to the life of a parrot, and then, of course, as a prince. So the tales are really often funny, often about ethics and morals. And this Tanka takes us through a number of them.

You can hear about them a little bit more on your tour afterwards, if you'd like to. In the very upper right, it's hard to see, I know here, but it's the story of the Buddha when he was an elephant and how he sacrificed himself so that others could eat. But there are so many to explore here and it's an interesting tanka here. We have something that looks a little bit like a narrative painting but also a landscape. There's just a lot of sort of detail in the environment as well as the figures. So today, to talk with us a little bit more about this idea of renewal, rebirth,

Sharon Salzberg is here. And we'll hear from her about how we can take that into our meditation practice. She is, of course, the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society of Barrie, Massachusetts, and such a beloved teacher and the author of so many wonderful, practical, helpful books like Real Love, The Art of Mindful Connection, and Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation. And we're so happy to have her be part of our meditation family here. Please welcome her back, Sharon Salzberg. Hello. Hello.

How nice to see you. I should tell you right off that my cough is my asthmatic allergic cough. I'm not sick, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't hug me. I had a kind of startling realization in this time, which we'll talk about a little bit later, of anxiety and tumult, which is that I'm a senior. It didn't occur to me before. It's like, oh, think of that. What do you know? Okay, well, really, thank you for coming. And when we talk about rebirth,

of course, there is the literal cosmology that's found in Buddhism, and there's also the kind of symbolic nature of it, beginning again, renewal, opportunity, opening. I'm going to start with the kind of literal idea. And I should say, this is really a belief. It doesn't have to be believed. You know, it's a framework that's held, which from some angles I think can be kind of useful. Within the Buddhist teaching,

there is a belief about rebirth and also many planes of existence. We're not always reborn as a human being, although we might be. They also talk about experiencing rebirth moment after moment. But to start with, that kind of cosmology. So I was living in India. That's where I first began meditation practice. And someone said to one of my teachers, this man named Manindra, he didn't really believe that stuff, you know, like many realms of existence and so on. And Manindra, in his inimitable style said, "'You don't have to believe it.

"'It's true, but you don't have to believe it.'" Because the whole context is that you don't have to believe anything. But the methods, the practices, have historically been embedded in certain cosmologies. And you can take them symbolically. You can reject them altogether. You can explore them if you're interested in them.

And that happens to be the framework that the methods of meditation, mindfulness, and so on, actually were held in. The idea within that is that we continue to cycle through all these realms of rebirth. And one of the things that I benefited from, myself, from exploring it as a concept is the recognition that through all these many lifetimes we have all done everything. Those of us sitting here in this room together right now have been one another's friends and enemies, we've helped one another. We've harmed one another.

We've laughed together. We've shed many tears together over and over again. And so I've often thought from that particular vantage point, the single most illogical reaction to something is a sense of self-righteousness. Like looking at somebody who just did something kind of negative or unskillful as though to say, oh, you way down there,

so far away from me, who's just done this terrible thing, which I could never ever do, because guess what? You've done it. And that in no way undermines a sense of right and wrong or where you want to put your life commitment or anything, but that sense of utter separation and self-righteousness,

it makes no sense in that context. And of course, there are many ways of coming to that insight. You don't have to have that belief. I've often thought just, as I say many times, I hope that somebody will invent the machine someday to amplify people's thoughts. And oddly enough, I think we're getting closer. But should that machine exist, we could plug in just one person per meditation session and listen. The rest of us could listen.

It would be so interesting. Like, oh, you looked so serene. Who would have guessed? You were filled with rage. Who knew? Because within ourselves, there are just these waves of all these different feelings and emotions and reactions. And that's just how it is in terms of conditioning.

How we relate to all of that can be very different. But to imagine, or in the absence of that machine, sometimes I feel like proposing, I never have, but I feel like proposing that one person would kind of be conscripted per meditation session to act out every impulse that comes up in their minds and the rest of us would sit with our eyes open and we'd all watch.

And again, it would be like, oh, really? You had to like wash your socks in that moment. What? You know, or what are you doing? you know so again it's not like we want to act out every impulse unfortunately we don't

you know because of education because of background sometimes sheer good luck I bet everyone in this room can look back and dig out a memory of a time when you were that close to making a terrible mistake and something happened, the phone rang or something, and you just didn't go there. But in terms of the feeling, the urge, the impulse, we all contain everything. And so that's one of the kind of perspectives that the very classical Buddhist notion of rebirth has given me.

You know, that I don't necessarily, I obviously don't know it, you know, because it's just a belief. But I do kind of believe it personally, but I've certainly explored it because I found it interesting. And I've seen that there are certain kinds of degrees of perspective or insights that it's really opened me to, which has been very interesting. It is a belief, and I can remember a time I was in a conversation with somebody, a Westerner who was practicing in a Tibetan tradition, and one of the things about beliefs is that they can vary.

They do vary, you know, system to system or lineage to lineage. And there was a certain difference in belief between us because of that. So in the Theravadan system or Burmese Buddhism, So in the Theravadan system or Burmese Buddhism, the belief is that we die, and in the next instant, the next mind moment, we're reborn. So our consciousness becomes freed from our body, and the next mind moment, we are reconnected to some other form.

And in the Tibetan system, it's a little different. There's this period known as the bardo, or the in-between state, which can last up to 49 days between death and that moment of rebirth. And so he and I were having an argument about which was true. And we went back and forth and back and forth, and he was furious at me for holding a different view. And at one point he just yelled at me,

and he said, well, you know you're just lying. Okay. And he walked off, and it was only later that I looked back at that kind of crazy conversation, given the intensity. And I thought, well, we're probably two people both kind of afraid to die. And not looking at that or expressing that, but holding on to this belief and saying it must be this way but really we don't know and yet um it's kind of an interesting thing to explore what does it imply to us certainly classically it implies watch your conduct because it makes a difference. If you live a life that's just overcome by greed or hatred or something like that, it's going to have implications for a future life. There are a billion other

ways of getting to a sense of care and compassion and morality. It doesn't have to be that way. But again, I think it's just interesting, I think, to explore how these beliefs have been held in different ways. As long as we remember it's just a belief. And I've seen that another way it's influenced me I went to visit a friend last year in hospice who was dying. That's why she was in hospice. And she was extremely peaceful and just lying in bed and she had this window view, you know, into the countryside. She was watching the birds and things like that.

She said, when I get afraid to die, I look out the window and I just look at nature. I said to her, well, when I get afraid to die, I think about rebirth in the sense that I realize I have a kind of performance anxiety about it. Like, I'm not going to do it right. And I say to myself, you've done this so many times. It's like, you've done this over and over again. You can do this. Right? So, and she laughed and she said, do you really believe in rebirth? And I said, you know,

I kind of do. And she said, I didn't used to, but I'm getting there. So there are just lots of things to explore, if you wish to, in that kind of classical sense. And of course, there's a huge symbolic sense. Leave the kind of classical cosmology aside. What does it mean to let go? What does it mean to start over? What does it mean to have a sense of renewal?

What does it mean to have a sense of renewal? What does it mean to have that sense of possibility? When we look at the truth of change, there are different factors or different aspects to it. One is this, you know, beginnings, openings, not being stuck. Things can change in all kinds of different directions. And then there's the kind of more fleeting nature of things. Everything's transitory. Nothing can be held on to. And they have different flavors. To be tuned into that kind of sense of beginnings and openings and possibility and

starting is is very exhilarating it's uplifting we have it's like springtime it's like wow I don't know I was in California for the whole month of February and one of my goals was to avoid winter which I understand was very mild while I was gone. So I keep thinking, oh, no, you know, now I'm back. We'll have, like, blizzard after blizzard after blizzard. Who knows? But that sense of spring, like, wow, here we are. And at the same time, it's also true.

There's a kind of poignancy. It's like everything is moving. It's shifting. It's transitory. It's uncertain. It's wavering. And that's its own flavor. And somehow we learn to hold both at once so that it's not just

that sort of poignancy and fleeting nature it's also the sense of possibility and it's not only that sense of possibility it's also realizing we can't hold on to anything that's how things actually are and in the Buddhist tradition, they use what are very beautiful images to try to describe something of that nature of reality. They

say life is like an echo, like a rainbow, like a dream, like a drop of dew on a blade of grass like a flash of lightning in a summer sky it's so ephemeral and yet here it's it's actual it's something to be experienced even to be savored and it passes and here we. That's the nature of things. So rebirth has something to do with that as well. So we're going to spend the rest of our time here together practicing together. And I know, clearly, it's a time of a lot of intensity and anxiety. Reasonably so.

You don't have to blame yourself if that's what you're you're feeling and so remember that we practice on many levels one is to center and get greater stability of attention so that when a strong emotion arises we we're able to recognize it, be with it, neither get subsumed by it and overcome by it, nor push it away and disdain it. So we call mindfulness the place in the middle where there's nothing wrong to feel, but if you get enveloped in each feeling,

then there's not enough space to actually have insight and clarity develop. And it's also important not to reject or push away anything. We have something like the feeling of the breath, which serves as a refuge. It's a way of recalibrating when you're really lost in something and you need a break. You just come back to the breath. And there it is, automatically.

We get anxious about that too, actually. I remember from my early practice where I would find a lot of difficulty for a lot of different reasons, just being with the breath, resting my attention on the breath. And I realized that one of the reasons was that almost as soon as this breath was happening, I would kind of be mentally leaning forward to feel the next 50, and I realized that was a mental posture I had very much in my life. I was very frightened. I was very wary.

I didn't know what might happen next. A lot had already happened to me in my life, and so for me, balance, which is key to the process, looked like settle back. Let the breath come to you. I used to say to myself, you're breathing anyway. All you need to do is feel it. Because I had so much anxiety. It's like I'd never breathed before.

I didn't know how to do it. It's like settle back. Let the breath come to you. You're breathing anyway. All you need to do is feel it. So I'd like to start the practice that way. If you could sit comfortably, close your eyes or not. Find the place where the breath is strongest for you or clearest for you. Good. Let your attention settle on that place,

nostrils, chest, or abdomen. And then... This is just the normal, natural breath. And rest. See if you can feel one breath. If you find yourself kind of hurtling forward, just relax. Settle back. Thank you for watching. Thank you. If you like, you can use a quiet mental notation like in, out, or rising, falling to help support the awareness of the breath, but very quietly so your attention is really going to feeling the breath,

just one breath at a time. And if images or sounds or sensations or emotions should arise, but they're not very strong, if you can stay connected to the feeling of the breath, just let them flow on by your breathing. Thank you.. if something comes up that is very strong it pulls you away say a strong emotion see if you could spend a few moments just recognizing oh this is what's happening right now without like diving into it

or pushing it away. You can recognize it. See if you can gently let go. Bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. Thank you. And perhaps all those many times you're just gone, lost in thought, you fall asleep, whatever. Don't worry about it. The really precious moment is the moment of rebirth, actually. It's being able to let go and begin again. You can let go of whatever has been overwhelming or taken over gently

and then bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. Takk for watching! Thank you. Takk for ating med. Thank you for watching. Thank you. Thank you.. Isn't that an incredible thing? We can always begin again, no matter where our attention goes, no matter what we've been lost in or for how long. We can let go and begin again. Takk for watching! Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry if I'm not able to translate this. Thank you. 1.5 cups of flour 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water

1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water 1 cup of water I'm going to show it with a spoon. It's so delicious. It's so delicious. It's so delicious.

It's so delicious. It's so delicious. It's so delicious. So thank you. Thank you. That concludes this week's practice. If you would like to support the Rubin Museum in this meditation series, we invite you to become a member and attend in person for free. Thank you for listening.

Have a mindful day.