Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Sharon Slazberg 12/20/2021

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Theme: Interdependence Artwork: Machik Labdron (1055-1153); Kham Province, Eastern Tibet; 19th century; Pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; [http://therubin.org/33a] 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 14:58. 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. hello everyone welcome to mindfulness meditation online with the rubin museum of art i'm becky horan i'm part of the programming team here and i am really excited to be your host today we're a museum of himalayan art and ideas in new york city and we're so glad to have you all joining us for our weekly program, especially during this busy week. As you know, we combine art and meditation all online for you and just create a moment to kind of come together across our different computers and across the world. Something else that I'd love to share with you and dig into before we get started today is that we're doing a monthly theme of interdependence and something that I've been thinking a lot about lately.

And it's a theme that is going to take some time to really dig into. So we're actually continuing it into January. So something that you can actually think about over the next couple of weeks, over the holidays that are coming up is this theme of interdependence. We'll be taking a two-week break for the meditation program. So please come back to us in January and continue thinking about this theme with us. But I would like to take a few moments to take a look at a piece of art altogether and focus on this theme of interdependence, sort of taking inspiration from this piece of art. So we're going to go ahead and see the art on our screen. And I'll give you a little background. This piece of art,

it's a painting and it features Machik Labdron, who lived from 1055 to 1153 and is one of the most prominent female masters and lineage holders of Tibetan Buddhism in history. And she actually appears deified in this painting as a Dakini. And that is a female spirit or a deity that helps assist a tantric practitioner's spiritual development through teaching and other forms of inspiration. And the reason why Matshi Klapjan is depicted this way in particular is because she was really well known for transmitting the practice of the female meditation deity Vajrayogini just so widely that she became identified with this goddess. So I would love to introduce our teacher for today, Sharon Salzberg, who is the co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in Barmwich, Massachusetts, has guided meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. Sharon's latest

book is Real Love, the Art of Mindful Connection. She is a weekly columnist for On Being and the author of several other books, including the New York Times bestseller, Real Happiness, The Power of Meditation, Faith, Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience, and Loving Kindness, The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Sharon has been a regular participant in many of our onstage conversations at the Rubin, and a longtime teacher with the Mindfulness Meditation. Sharon, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. Welcome, everybody.

We're still on the topic of interdependence, which I find fascinating. It's such a core teaching of the Buddhas and such a different way of looking at life. I think so many of us are brought up to feel kind of solitary and cut off and we strive for independence. We don't even think about interdependence. And it figures, as we've talked about, with relationships to one another, with relationships to the planet, not feeling so alone, recognizing we are a part of a larger whole. And it also figures in any kind of relatedness, which includes how does the body relate to the mind and the mind to the body?

How does anything that involves a dynamic involves relatedness, which means change, and constituent parts. And we can understand the interdependent nature of different dynamics, like family dynamics, which is seasonally appropriate. seasonally appropriate. And I often think actually of the stress dynamic because it's called a dynamic. There's the stressor, the pressure, the circumstance, and then there's the resource with which we meet it. And we know from life, right, that that can be totally different. Maybe we didn't sleep well last night, and some relatively minor thing happens, and we're freaked out. Or we don't feel so alone. We feel like we're part of a community. We feel appreciated.

We did sleep, and something happens, and it's not what we wanted. It's not pleasurable, but we meet it with so much more composure or insight or perspective. That's an everyday reality. And sometimes people don't like that because they think it implies we're going to be discouraged from ever trying to do anything about that circumstance, like make life better for ourselves and for others. And it doesn't mean that at all. But if we understand the interdependent nature of any dynamic, we also come to understand what maybe are more almost like hidden superpowers, which is to build that capacity, to build that sense of resource so that we don't feel so depleted. We don't feel so overcome. And then even if we're going to

strive mightily to change some kind of circumstance, the way communication is happening or what we're standing up for or what we're just letting go by, any of that, we can be doing it from a very different place within with a different level of strength and compassion for ourselves as well as for others. And so it's always interesting to look at the interdependent nature of any dynamic because we live in relatedness all of the time that's the nature of things and there's so many kind of sweet reflections that are done in in tibetan practice where uh you look at like a shirt or something like that that was i say that because that was the example first given to me. You know, you look at the shirt and you see that on one level it is a shirt.

It's a thing, you know, as an object. But on another level, you can go way back to all the constituent elements. Of course, it's active imagination, but it's really useful and kind of fun and creative, you know, but it's really useful and kind of fun and creative, you know, to everyone, every living being, every element of the earth involved in the creation of the shirt. And thank you, somebody likes my shirt in the chat. It's my loving kind of shirt.

And all of that. And so life kind of opens up. It doesn't feel so static. You begin to see, oh, like that shirt, what we call the shirt is so many beings and so many incidents and time and so many things coming together that everything begins to appear as a kind of interdependent context as well as being like an entity or an object all in and of

itself. And for those of you who are familiar with Machik Lebedron, which was the art that we And for those of you who are familiar with Machik Labdron, which was the art that we saw, and those who were able to stay longer to look at it more thoroughly, she is very famous in Tibetan Buddhism for the practice of chid, which is a very intense practice. It's translated sometimes as feeding the demons. And I'm sure it'll be described to you if you stay, but basically one of the heart elements of it is really taking that which we're afraid of, like the demon, and relating to it differently, like shifting the dynamic so that we're not running away, we're not repulsed. And when you think about what we're afraid of,

it's like our own fear, our own emotional state that we consider or have experienced as really reckless or causing pain. We're afraid of change. There's so many things that we were afraid of people, certain people, you know, that we are afraid of. And that's not necessarily wrong. But can we not be so bound and defined by that fear? Can we explore a different way of relating? And so in the classical practice, you feed the demon, like with your own body. As we understand it in sort of contemporary psychological terms, we approach those fearsome things differently.

I have a teacher, a Tibetan teacher, Sakne Mipache, who calls it, he calls those things we are afraid of beautiful monsters. You know, when we see those states arise in us, and he has a practice he calls handshake practice, which, you know, in Burmese Buddhism, we call it mindfulness, basically, where we're not avoiding something, we're not pretending it's not there where we're not avoiding something we're not pretending it's not there we're not accelerating the fear of it uh by catastrophizing you know this is going to take over this is all that i'll ever feel we're not adding elements like isolation i'm the only one whoever feels this but we're actually kind of, not to the point of getting engulfed by,

but just kind of, you know, coming a little bit closer with a curiosity, with an interest, which has its own hospitality or cordiality to it. So, you know, very modern expressions of chud are things like invite that thought that you have or the pattern that you have that you like the least. Invite them in for a meal. Don't give them the run of the house because that would be dangerous. That's not the point. You know, let them take over.

Keep an eye on them. But you don't have to be so afraid. You don't have to be so ashamed. You don't have to be so freaked out. You can actually, you know, take an interest in them. Let's hear what they have to say over a meal. So I was once describing that in a class and somebody didn't like it. So I said, well, how about a cup of tea?

Invite them in for a cup of tea. And they said, well, how about a cup of tea? Invite them in for a cup of tea. And they said, well, how about a cup of tea to go? And I said, okay, if that's okay. If that's the extent of your hospitality as what you feel you can do. But it's something like that. It's come a little closer, a little closer. Take a look, you know.

Be hospitable, be cordial. It's okay. This is what you are feeling. Feeling something is very different than being governed by it or acting because of it. And we can have that space and we can have that understanding as well. And that way, it really is a practice in relating differently to everything. We learn from everything, even those things that you would never have asked for. Like I'd like my meditation to be filled with, you know,

torpor or restlessness or greed. I mean, we really don't want that, but it happens. And we don't say, like, my life to be filled with jealousy or shame or something like that, but it happens. And in the process of relating differently because of that interdependent nature, things shift. They really do change. And we discover a kind of strength and clarity

and compassion inside of ourselves that's really very important. So why don't we sit together? Which is the last sitting I'll be leading for the Reuben in this year, isn't it? It's another year. It's good. You can sit comfortably, close your eyes or not, however you feel most at ease. or not, however you feel most at ease. Start by listening to sound, whether it's the sounds of my voice or other sounds. It's a way of relaxing deep inside, allowing our experience to come and go. Of course, we like certain sounds and we don't like others, but we don't have to chase after them to hold on or push away. Just let them wash through you. And bring your attention to the feeling of your body sitting,

whatever sensations you discover. See if you can feel the earth supporting you. I feel space touching you. Feel your hands. And see if you can feel the direct sensations. Pulsing, coolness, warmth, throbbing, whatever it might be. You don't have to name all those sensations but feel them. And on that same level of feeling sensations, bring your attention to the feeling of your 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. See if you can feel one breath. Without concern for what's already gone by, without leaning forward for even the very next breath. Just this one. And if something arises that's strong enough to take your attention away from the breath, a thought, an emotion, a sensation, whatever it might be, recognize, oh, this is what's happening right now.

There's joy, there's sorrow, whatever it is. In a very soft way, notice how you feel about that. Rather not have it, trying to push it away. It's okay. Whatever it might be. It's not pass-fail. It doesn't matter. You can't have the wrong answer. Just take a moment to notice how you are relating to that experience and see if you can let go. Bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath. And there might be many times where you're just gone, completely lost in thought,

spun out in a fantasy, or you fall asleep. Same thing. The moment you recognize that, notice how you speak to yourself as you let go and bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath are you frustrated can you be okay with letting go again and again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Vielen Dank. No matter how many times your attention wanders or where it goes, we can always, always let go and begin again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes or lift your gaze and we'll end the meditation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that, Sharon.

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 Laurie 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.