Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Sharon Slazberg 08/16/2021

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

Theme: Offering Artwork: Incense Burner; Kham Province, Eastern Tibet (possibly Derge area); 15th century; Damascened iron; Rubin Museum of Art; C2005.16.67a-b (HAR65490; [http://therubin.org/32g] Teacher: Sharon Salzberg 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 12:41. 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. 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. Hi everyone. Good afternoon and welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online here with the Rubin Museum of Art. I'm Dawn Eshelman. Thanks so much for joining us. Those of you who are regulars, those who come once in a while and new folks, welcome. Great to have all of you here in a while and new folks welcome great to have all of you here and thanks for joining us for our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online also just want to invite all of you to the museum to come and enjoy all of our exhibitions particularly awaken a tibetan buddhist journey toward enlightenment which explores the steps in the journey of self-knowledge and transformation from chaos to awakening and everything in between.

And inspired from the exhibition and our collection at large, we together here every week take a look at a work of art from our collection. And we are then led in a talk and a meditation by our teacher today. It's the wonderful Sharon Salzberg. And I'll bring her up here in just a couple minutes. So let's look today at today's work of art. We've been talking all of of this month about this idea of offering and the concept of offerings really through the lens of Tibetan Buddhism. And offerings are often made by Buddhist practitioners at the beginning and sometimes throughout and at the end of practice, but particularly at the beginning. And they are made in a whole variety of ways that we've been talking about sometimes, water, food, flowers. Today, what we're looking at here is what's been titled an incense burner,

although I think it has several functions actually. This is from eastern Tibet from the Khom province and this is from the 15th century. It's a ritual object. It's called an incense burner and it is golden in color and the top of it, the handle of it, is in the shape of a vajra, that lightning bolt that we often see. And then right below the handle is this kind of lid of the incense burner that's shaped a little bit like a tingsha I was noticing or a chime. And then that holds the cup of the incense burner itself which is made out of a kind of a lattice pattern,

which looks like some kind of foliage or clouds. And we see that there's this figure of a dragon, a long, thin, kind of wavy dragon here that symbolizes power or empowerment, kind of royalty. is power or empowerment, kind of royalty. An incense burner is usually, well, and also I wanted to mention that this instrument is also used to consecrate, to hold precious materials and substances like nectar, and does have a variety of uses beyond holding incense. And sometimes we traditionally will see incense being held in kind of a long burner so this is kind of a actually an unusual object and in Buddhism incense burners or they're also called sensors are used in all of Buddhist cultures into denominations and the burning of

incense takes place could take place in the home, at the temple, and it really serves as this offering to the Buddha or whatever deity is the focal point and is a ritual act that is believed to clear the air, right, to purify the space. Incense burners are usually placed on an altar with flowers, with other offerings, and containers can typically be made of bronze or copper and they're often decorated with gilding or enamel and the use of incense has really a long history and is thought to have stretched back to the beginning of human history. Incense is mentioned frequently in the oldest scriptures, the oldest Buddhist scriptures, and along with the flowers, food, and drink, and even garments, incense is a common offering made to the Buddha, to deities, and even to a revered person as a sign of respect. Let's talk more about

this idea of offering and what it can teach us about our practice as well, our meditation practice. I'll bring on our teacher, Sharon Salzberg. It's so nice to have you back, Sharon. Sharon is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Berry, Massachusetts, and she's guided meditation retreats all over the world for many years. Her latest book is Real Change, Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World. Change, Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World. And she's the author of many wonderful, wonderful books, including Real Love and others. You can find out all about her. She's got tons going on, even during these challenging times. There's always, Sharon, you always have something

to offer. And you can find out a lot about Sharon's activities at Sharon Salzberg dot com. Thank you for being here, Sharon. Thank you so much. So I love that image and I love the idea of offering. And I think it has a couple of different manifestations or different effects. For one thing, it's a moment of pause. Like, let's say you're about to meditate and you've been rushing all day and you're running around

and then you're going to leap onto the cushion and do it in that same sort of energetic space of toppling forward. And it's a moment of just pause and reminding yourself that this is important to you or that you're connecting to something bigger. Or if you do have an image of the Buddha, let's say, or some inspiring image like that. Let's say it's the Buddha. When we look at the Buddha, really what we're seeing is human potential, which means our own potential.

So it's really not kind of a, you know, devotion or sense of acknowledgement that has us feel like, well, I'm way down here, you know, devotion or sense of acknowledgement that has us feel like, well, I'm way down here and, you know, in this crummy sort of life and there is this exalted being that I must respect. It's like we look at the Buddha and we see ourselves because we see a living example, living in that sense, an embodied example of someone who has actualized the human potential for wisdom, vast love, connection, compassion, and so can we.

So when we look at the Buddha, we really do see ourselves. And when we look at ourselves, it is at a level where we are seeing all beings, because all beings are said to share the same potential, perhaps unactualized and unawakened, but they are absolutely. And so we take a moment and just connect to this larger sense of possibility. And so let's say you do make some kind of offering. Let's say it's incense. And then you stop for a few moments and you practice. It's just a sense of reconnection

to something that maybe we have been a little distant from all day long, no matter what we're doing. And, you know, it doesn't have to be incense, of course, you know, but one of the nice things about incense is that sense of the sense of blessing, the sense of import going through the air, just as with a prayer flag in the Tibetan tradition, because the prayers are on the flag and then the wind blows. It's like those prayers for the welfare, the benefit, the happiness of all beings can blow around the world. So it's a lot of that same sense. So it connects us to all of these things. And the other thing it connects us to in the other manifestation of this kind of offering is that, you know, any act of generosity, whatever it is, and this is what offering is,

it's generosity of the spirit in that moment. Any act of generosity reunites us with a part of ourselves that actually feels quite whole, like we have something to give. It's a part of ourselves that is of worth. And we might spend all day long, you know, pretty much thinking, feeling, we are not enough, we don't have enough, we could never contribute enough, we can't make a difference no matter how hard we try, you know. And then there's this moment when we are back connected once again

to this wholeness because as the buddha said when they say he taught generosity as the first principle the first quality of an awakened mind they say he started there because everybody has something to give it may be material offering. It may be with another person or presence or listening. It could be thanking somebody, acknowledging them. It could be this kind of symbolic offering. So not only do we have the connection to this bigger picture, we have a connection to that part of ourselves that's intact that doesn't in fact feel broken and insufficient and not enough and and so it's it's a beautiful moment it just takes a moment so um it's quite a lovely ritual in some way and it could be you don't need an object you don't need um you know something uh precious or adorned or affected.

In Burma, I remember where people would tend to have like altar tables, which were chock full of things that people in that community felt were precious and uh and it could be like the wildest things like um a jar of pickles honestly was once i saw that you know or fermented anything and meaning oh these people like that stuff you know and it's just that sense of like okay uh this is what i'm using because it means something to me and it doesn't have to be anything it doesn't have to be material but that pause is important and that sense of connection to something bigger

and to the most whole intact part of ourselves so let's meditate together and we can just take a moment So let's meditate together. And we can just take a moment because we can do it, each of us symbolically right now. You might visualize something or just have a sense of the good in your life. Some aspect of your life that is actually precious to you. And have a sense of opening and offering to the biggest picture you have of the world, all beings.

And if you have a particular iconography that's meaningful to you, if it's a Buddha or anything, you can use that if you want. And just have that sense of, I am offering this to you, to this picture of life, to all beings. Let's see if you can sit comfortably, bring your energy into your body. You can close your eyes or not, however you feel most at ease. You can start by listening to sound, whether it's the sound of my voice or other sounds it's a way of resting

deep inside allowing our experience to come and go of course you may like certain sounds and not like others, but you don't have to chase after them to hold on or push away. Just let them come, let them go. And bring your attention to the feeling of your body sitting, whatever sensations you discover. See if you can feel the earth supporting you.. See if you can feel space touching you. Space is actually always touching us.

And if we move into receptive mode, we can feel it. Thank you. Bring your attention to your hands and see if you can switch from the more conceptual level, like of fingers, to the world of direct sensation. Picking up warmth, coolness, pressure, whatever it might be. You don't have to name these things, but feel them. Thank you. and bring your attention to the feeling of your breath, just the normal in and out breath,

wherever you feel it most distinctly, at the nostrils, at the chest, or the abdomen. The nostrils, it might be warmth, coolness, vibration. The chest or the abdomen, it might be movement, pressure, stretching, release. Whatever it is, again, you don't need to name these things, but this is where we rest our attention. See if you can be with just this one breath, without concern for what's already gone by,

without leaning forward for even the very next breath, just this one. Thank you. 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, you can let them flow on by your breathing. It's just one breath. But if something is strong and it pulls you away, you get lost in thought, spun out in a fantasy, or you fall asleep, truly, don't worry about it. You may be distracted for a long time.

It's fine. Maybe you fall asleep. It's fine. When you realize that you've been gone, you've been disconnected, see if you can let go gently. And with some kindness towards yourself, return your attention to the feeling of the breath. So you have to let go and begin again countless times it's really okay Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Whatever arises, whatever might take you away,

for however long, it's really all right. We're practicing letting go. We're practicing letting go. We're practicing beginning again. Thank you. So another kind of offering that we do is at the end of a session, the end of a retreat, or the end of some action, and it's called sharing merit. It's a belief within the Buddhist tradition that any act toward the good that we do, we're kind, we're generous. We meditate, even if it feels like we have no concentration. We want to learn, we want to understand, we ask questions. All of these are activities that are said to generate a positive force, a positive energy.

And that energy is the merit. So traditionally, you come to the end of an act of generosity. You come to the end of a sitting. And first, you feel that positive energy. You let yourself acknowledge it. It's not conceit or arrogance. It's taking delight in goodness. You have a lot of things you can do on your lunch break. You chose to do this. That's actually powerful.

And then we offer that positive energy to those who've helped us, commonly those who are suffering. And this is such a time of such incredible acute suffering on this planet. And we acknowledge that and offer that force, which means that we're not overlooking, we're not disregarding, we're not overlooking, we're not disregarding, we're not forgetting those. We offer ultimately this force of merit, the force of that positive energy to all beings everywhere, to all of life.

So I'm going to guide you through it and the way I do it. And you can silently use other words, you know, that might make more sense to you. So in the beginning, we do let ourselves acknowledge the goodness. Like we have so many choices and there's a kind of wondrous feeling that we sometimes choose this kind of activity. And again, you don't have to feel squeamish. It's not like being conceited or pompous or anything.

But let yourself feel it. It's delight. And then I would offer this force, this energy to those who've helped me as different beings come to mind. And I would silently say something like, I offer the merit of my practice to you. May you be safe and be happy. Be peaceful. And those of my now are struggling, who are suffering. Because our inner work could never really be just for ourselves alone. I offer all the merit, the power of my practice to you. May you be safe, be happy, Be peaceful. Thank you. To one another as we've co-created this experience.

I offer the merit of my practice to you. May you be safe, be happy, be peaceful. Thank you. And then all beings everywhere, all people, all creatures, all those in existence, I offer the merit of my practice to all beings. May all beings be safe, be happy, be peaceful. Thank you. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes or lift your gaze and we'll end the meditation. Thank you, Sharon. Thanks so much. That concludes this week's practice. If you'd like to support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member. If you're looking for more inspiring content,

please check out our new podcast, Awaken, hosted by Lori Anderson. The 10-part series features personal stories that explore the dynamic path to enlightenment and what it means to wake up. Now available wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening and thank you for practicing with us.