Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 02/24/2020

Episode Date: February 22, 2020

Theme: Impermanence Artwork: Protector Begtse Chen [http://therubin.org/2z2 ] Teacher: Tracy Cochran “See what it’s like to grant yourself your complete acceptance.”  -- Tracy Cochran 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 15:18. 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 Med 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. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody. How are you doing today?

You feel warmed up to me because the sun is shining out there. So nice, right? Welcome to our weekly mindfulness meditation practice. My name is Dawn Eshelman. Great to see you all here. And what the heck? Who is here for the first time today? Welcome. Great. Great, great. Nice to have you. Who comes every week if they can? Hello. In between. Welcome. Welcome to everybody, including those folks listening on our podcast. And we have been talking this month about impermanence, this idea that things change. And it's really a conversation we're having all year long here at the Rubin, It's really a conversation we're having all year long here at the Rubin,

but we thought we would dig in here with you all to make sure we are really getting a thorough understanding of this concept that's really quite complicated. And today we are looking at this kind of magnificent creature here, right? This is the protector, Begetze Chen. And he is from Mongolia, late 18th, early 19th century. Let's just take a second to take him in here. He's pretty cool. He's kind of fabulously bulbous,

right, in his shape, with some pretty rocking boots down there, and some flowing fabric of his pants. He's got this great round belly, and it's covered with something that looks a little bit like scales but in fact he's wearing armor and he's dressed as this Mongolian general and of course he has his garland of severed heads which is typical for a creature that is a wrathful protector, as he is. And similar, putting him in the wrathful protector vein is his expression here, which is just kind of outrageous, right? He has not just two bulging eyes, but three bulging eyes,

and these kind of fiery eyebrows, and this gasp, this expression that is quite fierce with some very finely articulated fangs there, and his tongue sticking out, a crown of skulls, and then this kind of shock of fiery red hair at the top. And of course, he is wielding this sword. And we were just commenting that he's holding it kind of in a funny gesture here. It looks like he's holding a cup of tea with his pinky up. But in fact, he's just got this interesting grip on the sword here.

And as with many of the wrathful protectors, his job here is not just to be a scary monster, but to be a scary monster that's actually on our side, helping us defeat our own ego. And when we are grappling with this concept of impermanence, it's a really important approach to take. Because as he symbolizes, his role here is to really slice through ignorance and just take the head right off of our ego. And that is also why you see this garland of severed heads around him and his crown as well.

These are symbols of ego defeated. So just reminding us that we don't have control over what happens all the time and that if we can embrace that, then that is a way to freedom. And yeah, so delighted Tracy Cochran could be here today thank you Tracy Tracy is a writer

and the editorial director of Parabola magazine which can be found upstairs in the Rubin gift shop or online at parabola.org and in addition to teaching here at the Rubin Tracy teaches at New York Insight and every Sunday at Hudson River Sangha in Tarrytown, New York

you can find her and Parabola on Facebook, Twitter and TracyCochran.org please welcome her back Tracy Cochran applause so impermanence some of you are expecting a different teacher today.

And here I am. And that's impermanence. One description of impermanence I once heard is anything can happen at any time. Anything can happen at any time. And this is perpetual. It's not just big things coming out of the clear blue sky, blue sky, but even small things. Right before I came on stage, practically, I was feeling so together, and I spilled my coffee. And it kind of changes your sense of yourself in an instant. It's amazing. You go from feeling really smooth to totally awkward. And this is the way we live.

And it turns out that we have not just one brain, but three. We have an instinctive brain that's ancient, brain that's ancient, that we share with reptiles, that knows how to freeze or fight or flee. We have a mammal brain that we share with all mammals. We know how to love our children. We know how to wish to be part of a group, to be cozy, to have friends. And we have a higher thinking brain. So we have all this going on. And one way to understand that scary protector that seems so remote maybe to some people, part of another culture, is that it's inside you. It's inside me. When we get frightened, we get triggered. It's universal. We all have our

necklace of skulls. It might sound frightening, but do you have anybody who you resent? you have anybody who you resent? Anybody, anybody for whom the mantra, I'll show them, resonates. But I want to share, I often consult the great Dharma of the New Yorker cartoons. And I go to it immediately for help and support. And years ago, I saw a cartoon I could not forget, and I would like to share it with you, because it relates to the great topic of impermanence and also this protector. So in the cartoon, there's a car and it's in the middle of the deep woods. And in the car is a man and a woman and people in the back seat.

And the woman, who I presume is the wife, is saying to the driver, her husband, we all agree that we're lost. Now, the important thing to determine is who is to blame. thing to determine is who is to blame. And who can relate to this? It's instinctive. It's instinctive. The very first thing we do when we're in an unpredictable and unhappy situation, is go for whose fault it is. And we can't chew this over for a long time and reflect on it. So what I wanted to offer from my practice is that instead of trying to repress or be ashamed of the reptile brain or the feeling brain, with curiosity and compassion.

That we stop trying to be less. Stop trying to make your practice to somehow be like a lobotomy where you won't have certain painful feelings. But instead, to shift your attention to the truth, and this is the truth, that you have a capacity for an attention that can meet even the most painful feelings and reactions without judgment and with compassion. This is true.

And we begin to see that our invitation in practice is not to be less human, less three-brained, but someone who can meet our own humanity in a way that begins to transform. begins to transform. And I'm sure all of you who have had children or animals or even plants have seen that things respond to kindness. They do. One of the key metaphors in this practice is about dealing with painful emotions. That protector wants to protect us. First of all, see the basic good in that.

It evolved to help you. And then picture an animal who might be frightened or startled or upset. And picture what you might do with that animal. One thing you could do is put it in a really tight stall and restrain it. This would try to hold him or her, but it would be painful. Or you could Rotten in a great big field. Let it run and run and run until it calms down. When we give ourselves our kind attention instead of our judgment, instead of one more instruction to change.

Aren't you tired of that? Instead of that, to meet yourself with unlimited compassion. compassion, so that that protector inside, that reptile mind, that mammal, that thinking So that their energy becomes available to you. So that you can be more vibrantly alive. So why don't we practice together. So see how it feels to bring an attention to the body that doesn't judge. And see that the body includes your feelings, your sensations, your thinking. And see what it's like to grant yourself your complete acceptance. Everything that happens is okay.

It's acceptable. And see that this attention has a presence. It has a life to it that softens the body. Thank you. And see that it's okay to find yourself thinking and that you can gently come home to the sensation of being in a body, breathing, being present in this moment. Thank you. Thank you. You can come home anytime and find a presence that welcomes you without judgment. Thank you. Thank you. See that there's a vibrancy inside you. outside. Thank you. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 52, 53, 56, 57, 59, 52, 53, 53, 56, 57, 59, 52, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53, 53,... When you get lost in thought, just come home.

Home to the sensation of being present now. Thank you. Thank you. Takk for ating med. Thank you. See that the stillness isn't shutting down. It's opening to life inside and outside. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.... and see that as we let ourselves soften and open just a little, a presence begins to appear, begins to appear a light of attention that doesn't judge us, that is kind. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching. Thank you... noticing a presence inside you and also around you.... So today, as an experiment, let's notice the stillness around you, the presence. And you can open your eyes, of course, if you haven't, but see that you can maintain contact with that, even with open eyes. and we'll go in a few minutes and off to our busy days, but when you get carried away, know that you can come home,

even in the thick of it. Come home to the sensation of being present, standing on the earth and belonging to a greater life, a greater presence, not out there, right inside. We can feel it right here. Okay, thanks Tracy.

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.