Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tashi Chodron​ 10/16/2019

Episode Date: October 18, 2019

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, a 20-minute sitting session, and a closing discussion. The guided meditation begins at 17:21. If you would like to attend Mindfulness Meditation sessions in person or learn more, please visit our website at RubinMuseum.org/meditation. To view a related artwork for this week's session, please visit: https://rubinmuseum.org/mediacenter/tashi-chodron-10-16-2019-podcast This program is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg, the Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. Sharon Salzberg led this meditation session on October 16, 2019. If you’re enjoying this podcast, you can listen to more recorded events at the Rubin, such as the conversation by Black American Buddhist leaders on activism and community, with DaRa Williams, Kamilah Majied, and Willie Mukei Smith. You can find it at: https://rubinmuseum.org/mediacenter/black-american-buddhists-on-activism-and-community

Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast. I'm your host, Dawn Eshelman. Every Wednesday at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea, we present a meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area. This podcast is a recording of our weekly practice. If you would like to join us in person, please visit our website at rubinmuseum.org meditation. We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the New York Insight Meditation Center. In the description for each episode, you will find information about the theme for that week's session,

including an image of a related artwork chosen from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection. And now, please enjoy your practice. My name's Dawn Eshelman. Great to be here with all of you. Anybody here for the first time? Welcome. Great. And who comes every week if they can?

Welcome back. In between. Anybody in between? Welcome. Great. We're talking about ritual this month, and ritual as a means to personal power, to collective power, and to the power within, right? Then we have the power of singing bowls. Thank you. We are talking about this concept of ritual as a means to power because we are really having this year-long conversation

all about power, the power within us, the power between us. And we've been discussing through the course of the month what ritual means to us through a few different lenses, through the lens of our practice, because for some of us, this is a ritual, or we like to ritualize it, right? Some people really, that helps them build their practice. And we're talking about it through the lens of Tibetan Buddhism,

and as ritual being a form of passing on, of power, of learning, of receiving, right? Teachings and other types of empowerments. And today is exciting because we really get to look through both of those lenses together. I got a text from Kate Johnson today saying, Amtrak is giving me lemons. And so we're making lemonade with that today. So it's some pretty gourmet lemonade. Just want you to know. And I'm actually really excited

to be able to introduce my colleague, Tashi Chodron. She runs Himalayan Heritage, a regular program. She is an amazing educator and partnership builder here at the museum. And she also teaches meditation. I'll tell you a little bit more about her when I bring her up here. But thank you, Tashi. Thank you for being just, you know, saying yes right away and jumping in here so we can all practice together. In fact, when I texted Tashi to ask her if she could do this, she, and I said, Tashi, the theme is a ritual, and we're using the ewer today. She said, I'm in the shrine room looking at the ewer. were today. She said, I'm in the shrine room looking at the ewer. So pretty cool there. So speaking of the ewer, this is our object for today. And this is a ritual object. It is used for pouring liquid offerings during daily offerings, initiation ceremonies, and other rituals.

daily offerings, initiation ceremonies, and other rituals. And there is a central decorative motif there that you see on the belly of the vessel, which is a gilt dragon surrounded by Buddhism's eight auspicious symbols highlighted in gold. And the mouth emerges from the mouth of a water monster, or makara. So while this is a very ornate object and quite beautiful, it is just a reminder to us that these objects in our daily life, whether they are simple or ornate, can be very powerful in their ritual power. So today, Tashi is going to give us a taste of that. Awakening practice is the program.

And as I mentioned, Tashi is my colleague here. She runs Himalayan Culture Programs and Partnerships and is the founder and current director of Voices of Tibet, an organization dedicated to conducting interviews with Tibetan elders to preserve their stories for future generations. And Tashi is a lifelong practitioner and meditator in the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and has studied quite a bit under that tradition

and received teachings from a number of incredible teachers, and received teachings from a number of incredible teachers, including the teacher who leads the Polyol Retreat Center upstate, where I know Tashi is a practitioner as well, and that teacher is Pema Dzogchen. And Tashi also has studied with Insight Meditation Society, Insight Meditation and Mindfulness as well. So really just so grateful, Tashi, and excited to enjoy this.

Please welcome Tashi Chojin. So wonderful to see you all. Thank you. And as Dawn mentioned, that when she texted me and said, Kate's having trouble with the train and our theme is ritual and this is the object. And I texted her back and I said, I'm standing right in front of it. I happen to be wandering around on the galleries and sitting in the shrine room for a little bit, and I was just looking at it right there on the screen.

Those of you who have attended awakening practice in the shrine room, you probably remember this. I often say that when we come together like this, it's not a coincidence. It's often our karmic connection ripening from many past lifetimes. And so the fact that we are all here together, it's our karmic connection ripening. And I guess instead of ritual, we should talk about change because there's so much change. But, you know, I was just sharing with my colleague earlier,

just a few seconds ago, change comes, you know. The basic, the essence of the teaching in Buddhism, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, is impermanence. And so I think it's very important to, you know, hope for the best, right? Change comes, that's hope for the best. And then sort of, you know, just face it, right? Talking about ritual, I have this ritual where I like to start the session with the eight auspicious, youpicious, noble auspicious prayer.

And again, some of you who attend awakening practice, you're familiar. It feels long, but it's only a little more than a minute. And it's a very important prayer for us all to invoke the goodness that is in us. So I'm going to recite the prayer..ကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေကေ. So this is a prayer that's written by Jhumi Pong, and the verses of auspicious invokes the power of goodness exemplified by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas

so that any harm or obstacles may be overcome. So this is the prayer that I've seen our great masters reciting, beginning of any program and any major event and decisions in order to bring us all blessings. Now, talk about ritual, as Don was mentioning about the object having eight auspicious symbols. mentioning about the object having eight auspicious symbols. So again, having the eight auspicious symbols helps to purify negativity,

bring forth blessings and good fortune, things like that. So again, to touch on the ritual with my personal, Again, to touch on the ritual with my personal, I often hear our friends say, I didn't get a cup of coffee this morning, so I'm not myself, kind of those saying, right? And for me, my ritual every morning, I do my shrine in my apartment. That's filling up the seven bowls and making tea offering and lighting candle

and so that's my cup of coffee every morning um if i don't get to do that i i don't feel you know like fully myself so um i thought i'll just share that with you but um in the buddhism as you all know there is theravada Buddhism, which is practiced in Southeast Asia. Then there is the Mahayana, which means greater vehicle in Sanskrit, which is practiced in China and Japan and other places. Then there is Vajrayana, esoteric tantric Buddhism, which is practiced all over the Himalayas, which came to Tibet in the 8th century by Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche in Tibetan. Some of you probably are familiar with the future exhibition that we explored last year, which was an exhibition on the Padmasambhava.

And in the esoteric Vajrayana form of Buddhism, you know, which is often referred to as many methods, it is characterized by the extensive use of ritual activities. Among them, the initiation of the practitioners by an authorized master, the visualization of oneself as a deity, the recitation of mantras, and the making of offerings. So when I make offerings in the morning, whether it's seven bowls or flower offerings on my shrine, candles, I dedicate for the benefit of all sentient beings, which is one of the core, main important thing, the benefit of all sentient beings, which is one of the core,

main important thing to benefit for all sentient beings, especially, you know, where there's darkness, where there is starvation, where there is hunger, you know, things like that. And so all of these rituals of offerings that we make, I've heard some great masters saying it's like a fertilizer. You know, when you're growing something, you know, there is, it needs all the five elements, right? Proper space, proper, you know, air, light, and all of that in order for that, light, and all of that in order for that, you know, the seed or whatever that you're trying to grow. And so this ritual is designed to remove obstacles for practitioners or for anybody to, you know, reach the path to enlightenment. And reaching the path to enlightenment is for the benefit of all sentient beings. And so, again,

the core or one of the first teachings by Buddha is the Four Noble Truths, right? Which connects to the suffering, where the suffering, causes of suffering, succession the suffering, you know, where the suffering, causes of suffering, succession of suffering, and path that leads to, you know, getting rid of the suffering.

And so nobody in the world wants suffering, right? And so when we know where the sufferings come from, then of course, then we can avoid that. And what's the total opposite of suffering? It's happiness. And who doesn't want happiness? Everybody wants happiness. Whatever we are doing, whether we are working eight to five jobs

or not doing that hours or whatever kind of profession, we are all ultimately doing it to find some kind of happiness. And so that happiness, you know, again, it's like the fertilizer. It's like the fertilizer. You plant the seed of happiness, then happiness comes. For example, if you want a mango tree to grow, and if you plant banana, you're not going to get mango, right? So likewise examples of like how, you know, you want happiness, you plant the seed of happiness. And so in order to plant the seed of happiness, I think one of the Buddha's core teaching is, and now And now even science agrees, right?

That mindfulness, meditation, or now the experts say if we sit quietly, just observing on our breath for even a few minutes, but of course if you can stay up to 20 minutes each session, then you can actually see more result. And so basically what that is, is, you know, in the teaching it says, every single human being or the beings are born with that wisdom. And what is that wisdom? It's the seed of, you know, whether it's Jesus' wisdom or Allah's wisdom or Buddha's wisdom,

any of the divine, that seed. But because of the afflicted emotions, the anger, hatred, jealousy, all these attachments, you know, they bring so much suffering. So sitting quietly helps, you know, they bring so much suffering. So sitting quietly helps, you know, reduce these afflicted emotions and give rise to the wisdom that each of us are born with. So let us sit together. I think in the meditation it says in the teaching that sitting together, collective karma. There is such thing as collective karma. So coming together like this and sitting together

also is considered actually very beneficial. So let's sit comfortable. I'm very happy to lead this short guided meditation. First, keep your spine straight. And then in this session, I'd like to request everyone to close your eyes. But if you're used to keeping your eyes semi-closed, semi-open, then of course you can, you know, just choose what makes you comfortable. Relax your muscles in your body. Starting from your head, relax your muscles in your head. Relax your muscles, your jaws, your shoulders, upper body, lower body, tip of your toes.

tip of your toes. Again, since everyone is sitting on the chair, your feet firmly on the floor. And just relax your whole body and observe on your breath. Just be aware of your breath. Breathing in, breathing out. If your mind is wandering around, just try not to analyze or chase after it. Just let it be. Thank you. Now let's take your awareness outside of your physical body to the sound. Just be aware of your sounds, of your neighbor's breathing, or someone walking.

Just simply be aware of the sound around you. Now from this awareness, let's take it into the space. Just be aware of the space around you, above you, beyond this all. and be aware of the space beyond this city the vastness of the space. Again, if your mind is wandering around, just simply let it be. Just like the waves in the ocean, it just goes away by itself. Just don't chase after it, don't try to analyze, and let it be. Now from this experience I'd like to bring you to a different level of meditation which give your head a blissful, illuminating divine light above your head,

scanning one's body starting from your head, down to your shoulders, your arms. And as you visualize the light scanning one's body Visualize getting rid of all the negativity, sickness. Visualize the whole upper body lit with this blissful, divine light to your lower body and to the tip of your toes. Now visualize that all in your body, you can send the light back. If you feel lightness in your body, just let it be. Don't be attached.

Now, from your heart chakra, let us send the light to all directions in front of you, on your side, below you, behind and above. with this blissful divine light to all sentient beings benefit, especially where there is so much suffering going around. With genuine love and compassion, with so much joy, let us send the light to all sentient beings' benefit. Now let's, with so much joy and happiness, you can dissolve the lights back in your heart chakra. And let's sit together for a few more minutes.

Breathe in. And breathe out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, now I'm going to ring the bell. May all sentient beings be free from the causes of suffering. May all be happy. May all be happy. May I dedicate this merit to all sentient beings. Thank you. Thank you, Tashi. meditation to learn more. Sessions are free to Rubin Museum members, just one of the many benefits of membership. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.