Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Sharon Salzberg 07/03/2025

Episode Date: July 11, 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 13:14.Teacher: Sharon SalzbergTheme: JoyAvalokiteshvara in his Potala Pure Land; Tibet; 18th century; ground mineral pigment, raised gold, fine gold line on cotton; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; C2012.4.5 Learn 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. Good afternoon, everyone, and Tashi Delek. Welcome. Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Arts Mindfulness Meditation Program here at New York Insight Meditation Center.

I'm Tashi Churdun, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador, and I'm delighted to be a host today. So the Rubin is a global museum dedicated to Himalayan art and its insights. And we're so glad to have all of you join us in person and online for our weekly program where we combine art and meditation.

Inspired by our collection, we will first take a deep look at the work of art we've chosen today. We will then hear a brief talk from our teacher, Sharon Salzberg, and then we will have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes, for the meditation guided by her. Let's take a look at today's theme and artwork. This month we are exploring on the theme of joy and the art connection for today's session which is handpicked by our teacher Sharon is this beautiful thangka which is a scroll painting of Avalokiteshvara in his Potala Pure Land. Avalokiteshvara is known as Chenreg Zik in Tibetan word, which means all seeing or all knowing Buddha, often known as the Bodhisattva. This is origin from Tibet,

dated later 18th to early 19th century. Mineral pigments on cloth, silk brocade. This is about 46 and a half into 26 and a half into one quarter inch, a beautiful scroll painting. The theme for the month of July, this vibrant thangka captures joy, one of the four boundless qualities of the awakened heart through its rich color,

harmonious composition, and serene spiritual presence. At the center is the Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and the patron deity of Tibet. How you can identify that this is a Bodhisattva figure is you see these beautiful, you know, very bejeweled ornaments, necklaces, armlets, anklets, crown, all of that. And here Avalokitesvara appears in four-armed, although some of you may know that Avalokiteshvara also appears in many forms, 1,000 arms, 1,000 eyes, six arms, and multiple 11-headed with peaceful and fierce wrath form in the 1,000-armed Avalokiteshvara. Often he appears in a peaceful and white in color.

His upper hand holds crystal mala, the prayer beads, as you can see on the right arm, symbolizing the continuity of compassion action, while his lower hand's lotus blossom. Two of the lower hands are actually in folded gesture to the heart, and the lotus on the left hand, upper hand, representing purity. This is a close-up sitting in a full lotus vajra position. Now the supporting figures on the lower scene of the sthanka enhances the scene's joyful energy, the green tara who is often referred to as protecting from the Eight Great Fear. And then on the lower left side, to our right, is the Padma Pani, one of the Avalokiteshvara.

If you look closely, you can see some kind of a bridge-like rope going upwards on both the sides with small figures, the monks, nuns, and laypeople. So this is sort of our go-to-pure land, having a better next life or rebirth. And now let's bring on our teacher for today. Our teacher is Sharon Salzberg. Sharon is the co-founder of Insight Meditation Society

in Barrie, Massachusetts, has guided meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Her latest books are Real Life, The Journey from Isolation to Openness and Freedom and Finding Your Way, Meditations, Thoughts and Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life. She is a weekly columnist for On Being, a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and the author of several other books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation,

Real Change, Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World, Faith, Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, and Loving Kindness, The Revolution revolutionary art of happiness. Sharon, thank you so much for joining us and please help me in welcoming Sharon Salzberg. It's a great delight to be with you and what a wonderful topic, as well as happy birthday, His Holiness. It's sort of an incredible time since He's turning 90. And this one particular aspect of joy I wanted to talk about in emphasis, which is called sympathetic joy, the Buddhist tradition. So sympathetic joy is real generosity of the spirit.

It's feeling happiness for the happiness of others. Rather than falling into the pit of jealousy or envy, we can so easily fall into when we witness someone's success or good fortune. There's this voice that so often arises within us that says, oh, I wish you had just a little bit less going for you right now. Like you don't have to lose everything. But if the light could just dim a bit, I'd feel better about myself.

So sympathetic choice, actually being happy for the happiness of others. It doesn't mean we lose discernment or intelligence. You know, people often ask me, well, does that mean if I see someone making a lot of money by just spoiling the planet, should I feel happy for them? And I say, no, we still have our values. We still have, you know, the things we really take a stand on as right or wrong. It's not that, but so often that jealousy, that envy doesn't come from discernment, it comes from a feeling. Well, there's several assumptions we might make.

One is, I've got nothing and they have everything and it's going to last forever. Clearly, there are a few different problems with that because nothing lasts forever. It's also unlikely that I have absolutely nothing. I may have nothing much I pay attention to or practice gratitude for, but it's unlikely I have just nothing. And it's also unlikely they have absolutely everything

because life is life, right? It's fragile, it's also unlikely they have absolutely everything because life is life, right? It's fragile. It's uncertain. We go up, we go down. And so that's an assumption that keeps us kind of feeling ripped off when someone else is doing well instead of feeling joy. There's also an assumption almost like happiness is a limited commodity in this world and the more someone else has, the less there's going to be for me. And so we fall into that kind of jealousy.

They've got it all. And then there's this really, it's a little hard to describe, but it's this funny feeling. It's almost like the prize, the praise. The good fortune was coming right my way and you stole it. You reached out your hand and you grabbed it and it went to you instead. And so we feel really like we've been stolen from with someone else's happiness. Of course, what happened to them may have nothing to do with our own lives. Like we may be in direct competition with someone, a true at times, we're applying for the same job,

the same grant, if you get it, I don't. But a lot of times it's not like that. We're actually not in competition. We just feel as though we were in my sort of prize story about sympathetic joy as I was teaching in Massachusetts at the Insight Meditation Society and gave a talk one night on the quality of sympathetic joy. And I just said this, like the words just came out of my mouth. I said, well, it's like, let's say you're in New York City and it's Sunday and you go buy a newspaper.

This was a long time ago. You go buy a physical newspaper and you buy the New York Times and you open it up to the book review section and you open that up to the New York Times bestseller list and you see that your friend's book has gotten on the New York Times bestseller list and you start thinking oh no they didn't deserve it I deserve it and they stole it from me it's almost like the editors were driving around and they were heading toward my address to give me the good news and you kidnapped them. You made them put your book on it instead of mine. So I just use that as an example and by the oddest of coincidences I had three different friends in the room, each of whom had had a book

on the New York Times bestseller list and they each came up to me after the talk and I said, is that how you felt when you saw my book on the list? I said, no, no, no, no, no, of course not. How could that ever be? But we do sometimes and it's that illogical. And of the qualities we talk about, like loving kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy, I've had many teachers say that sympathetic joy is one of the most difficult,

but one of the most liberating. And to quote his holiness, who once said, he said this a long time ago also, he said, it only makes sense to feel happiness for the happiness of others. And that way we increase our odds of feeling happy by 6 billion to one now what is it like 8 billion to one. And they used to joke in India like saying it's

like the lazy man's route to happiness. It's like you don't have to get dressed in the morning and have to spend any money. You just think of someone else's good situation. You feel happy for them. You're happy. It is a beautiful, beautiful quality and sometimes hard to get to. I think we feel it's a fact because sometimes something really good happens for you

and some people are so happy for you and it feels so beautiful. And other people, like they may smile but you really get the feeling they'd be just fine if it all fell apart from you and it feels so painful. So I think we understand the power and the beauty of that state and we can cultivate it, we can strengthen it, we can develop it in part by doing gratitude meditation for what we actually do have so we don't feel so like hollow and empty and bereft. We do have a lot going for us and we can afford to be happy for the happiness of others and just pay attention to how that feels.

And we experience the joy of it and kind of the unlimited nature of that. And it really moves us to that kind of expansive free state. Okay, so why don't we do some meditation together? And if you like, you can begin with just that contemplation. See if you can find something to feel grateful for from today. You can close your eyes or not, just be comfortable. And if nothing particular comes to mind,

the fact that you have the opportunity and the freedom of mind to do that contemplation, we're here together. Look at that. And just notice what it feels like as that energy fills you. And then doing the meditation, which we're about to do, I'm going to suggest you rest your attention on the feeling of the breath, just the normal natural breath, wherever you feel it most distinctly, the nostrils, the chest or the abdomen, you can find that place, bring your attention there and just rest. See if you can feel one breath.

Without concern for it sort of gone by, without looking forward for even the very next breath, just this one. If you like, you can use a quiet mental notation of in, out, or rising, falling to help support the awareness of the breath, but very quiet. So your attention is really going to feel in your breath, 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. It's just one breath. They are strong and you get pulled away, but you get lost in thought or spun out in a fantasy

or you fall asleep, truly don't worry about it. See if you can have here too a spirit of appreciation because the practice really is a practice of recovery. It's being able to let go gently. It's being able to begin again with kindness toward yourself. We can have gratitude right in that moment, rather than putting ourselves down or feeling like we failed.

You realize you've been gone? See if you can gently let go and simply come back........ It's just one breath. The breath is happening anyway. All we need to do is feel it.......... And if you find your attention is wandered and you're hypercritical or putting yourself down, maybe you can remind yourself it's okay. The practice is about beginning again and we can appreciate the fact that we've noticed we're distracted. Recognize that, see if you can let go and just start over............. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes or lift your gaze and we'll end the meditation. So thank you for that practice together.

Thank you so much for that wonderful session, Sharon. 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 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.