Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 04/25/2022

Starting point is 00:00:00 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. I'm your 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

Starting point is 00:00:50 Salzberg and teachers from the New York Insight Meditation Center, The Interdependence Project, and Parabola Magazine. And now, please enjoy your practice. Hi, everybody. Welcome. Great to have you here. Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online with the Rubin Museum of Art. I'm Dawn Eshelman. Great to be your host today. We are a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City, and we're so glad to have you joining us today. This entire month, we have been talking about healing and the people and elements in our lives that inspire not just healing, but our health, our optimized well-being. We will just give you the overview of what we'll do today. So inspired from our collection, we'll take

Starting point is 00:01:46 a look at a work of art together from our collection. We'll hear a brief talk from our teacher. Today is the fantastic Tracy Cochran. And then we will hear from Tracy. Then we'll have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes for the meditation guided by Tracy. Okay, so we'll take a look at today's theme and artwork. And this is really inspired by Healing Practices, which is an exhibition that we just opened last month. So we're looking at the protective astrological chart that is featured in that exhibition as a healing practice, a tool for healing. This is from Tibet, 18th or 19th century. And astrology is very important in Buddhist healing sciences. It's actually important in many different cultures. And there's a strong tradition of astrological practices in a variety of cultures. We actually did a series of programs on this a few years back

Starting point is 00:02:56 and explored Vedic traditions, Mayan traditions, other indigenous traditions as well. So this astrology has its origins in the Tibetan shamanistic culture of Bon, so the kind of precursor to Buddhism, the indigenous religion of Tibet was Bon. And it can be used to construct medical calculations and protective guides for individuals and households. So they're typically charts displayed in households that can be utilized by different family members and customized to the specific needs of families. And the primary figure actually that's at the bottom, so I'm going to go back to the main picture here, and you can see there are these two main circles and the one at the bottom here is actually a tortoise, a metaphor for creation. So on the tortoise's belly are concentric circles that illustrate from the inside out the nine magic

Starting point is 00:03:59 numbers, the eight trigrams, and the 12 animals of the zodiac, which combined all together with the five elements form the 60-year cycle of the Tibetan calendar. Along the sides are rows of sigils, each representing a negative spirit, and these symbols bind those spirits in a contract agreeing not to harm the displayer of the image. Now I would love to bring on our fantastic teacher today. This is Tracy Cochran. She's been a student and teacher of meditation and spiritual practice for decades.

Starting point is 00:04:39 She is the founder of the Hudson River Sangha, which is virtual and open to all. You can find more about this on tracycochran.org. And Tracy teaches not only at the Rubin, but also mindfulness, meditation, and mindful writing at New York Insight Meditation Center and many other places. She's the writer and editorial director of Parabola, an acclaimed and quite beautiful quarterly magazine that seeks to bring timeless spiritual wisdom to the burning questions of the day. There's a new issue of Parabola out right now, right? And that's about ancestors. And I believe you also, Tracy, have a piece in this. So check it out. You can

Starting point is 00:05:17 get it at the Rubin shop or you can check out the magazine and much more at parabola.org. Welcome, Tracy. Well, thank you, Dawn. I'm delighted to be back, and especially under this beautiful and intricate illustration, which Tashi will describe and talk about later. But I wanted to talk to you just a bit before we meditate about what astrology can mean to us. And most of the people here today are from a Western background.

Starting point is 00:06:10 people here today are from a Western background. And some of the people who are here and who listen to the podcast are younger people, younger than I am. And there has been a great resurgence of interest in astrology among that population in particular, which fascinates me. So I've been reflecting on this and delving into it is that it is exactly what draws me and many of us to practice. Namely, to shift to an interest towards astrology is to open our view of who we are and what governs our life. It's not so much a question of shifting to believe in something fanciful or something unreal versus the reality of data, versus the reality of data, but to shift, to open really our attitude towards ourselves and our lives. It's not a matter of thinking that we're fixed, that we have a certain star sign where Aquarius or Taurus, but to open, to consider that our lives move, they change.

Starting point is 00:07:56 And this is what Buddhism teaches. In other words, it helps us. It's a tool for healing. Healing in the root sense of the word in English means to make whole, to begin to see that all parts of our lives inform us and potentially awaken us. So that looking at our lives as something influenced by the movement of the planets shows us that a depression, a hard time, a time of conflict a hard time, a time of conflict will eventually shift. As Maya Angelou famously said, sooner or later, every storm falls, runs out of rain,

Starting point is 00:08:57 rain stops, another opportunity comes in. So it's not simply opening our view to see that we're part of a larger world. And it touches me the image of the tortoise because an emblem for creation, for the earth. So opening to this notion that we're influenced by great forces. First of all, it's not fanciful. We are literally made of star stuff. We are literally part of a world that gives us oxygen. Our lungs are like trees. Our circulatory system is like a river. All of this is very real. But it also invites us to consider a very

Starting point is 00:10:11 different way that we can be free. And that freedom consists not in forcing things to happen. And this was a colonial way of doing this. We will just force things. But rather more like all these indigenous cultures that looked at the stars, that studied them, that understood our interconnection with nature. understood our interconnection with nature. So that on an individual basis, as we come to practice now, we begin to see that our freedom consists not in trying to always outruns or out, or conflict, or aging, or loss, or anything else we fear. But to begin to discover a new way of relating to that fear. As the great poet Rilke once said, it may be the case that everything that frightens

Starting point is 00:11:31 us inside is something helpless that needs our love. And we begin to see that love far from being something frightening or something remote from us, love in this practice is a way of seeing with kindness and with an openness openness to the reality that things change, that things open and reveal other truths, other phases. So as we begin to take our seat to meditate right now, I invite you to consider that not only are we under the planets and the stars and sitting on the earth together, but these bodies, these hearts, these minds, these lives that we live that can seem so bewildering and overwhelming sometimes and fraught with uncertainty, all of these things can open and reveal unexpected joys and meanings under the touch of your own kind attention. We begin to discover, as Maya Angelou again said, that we need joy like we need oxygen. We need each other like we need the earth. So we take a comfortable seat and just really take that suggestion comfortable, seriously.

Starting point is 00:13:49 What is it like to welcome yourself to be here just like this? Without forcing yourself to be another way or a better way, but to just notice that there is an attention present inside you right now. You don't have to strive for it. Just close your eyes and see that there is a luminosity here, a willingness to be with what happens to be present today. And see that this attention can touch everything it finds, whether it's tension or sorrow or restlessness. Whatever it is, it can meet it home to presence, home to the

Starting point is 00:15:34 present moment. And notice that you can make this movement of coming home to the body of breathing, no matter what else is going on. Letting thinking happen, letting memories pop up if they pop up, Please pop up if they pop up, letting all the senses appear, sound, touch, and notice that you can come home to an attention that receives all of this with kindness and interest. And notice how it feels to rest in the stillness of not striving. Thank you. And notice that when you get lost in thinking or dreaming or picturing, you can gently come back again to the experience of being present and notice that this doesn't close you but opens you, opens you to life we begin to remember mindfulness means to remember presence presence, to remember that we're alive in a living world. Thank you. Notice how it feels to give yourself to life, to presence, to let yourself soften and open the influences known and unknown that are coming in and going out, are impressions of and great forces of compassion and love. Thank you. Just let yourself rest in stillness, in not resisting, not striving. And notice how everything changes. And notice that there is a presence here inside you and outside you that accompanies you, that sees, receives what's happening with kindness, with openness like the sky. Thank you. Notice that this simple movement of return, of returning to the body and the breath and

Starting point is 00:23:53 the present moment opens you to the cosmos. Not thinking about it, but gently opening to sense that we are not alone, that we belong to a larger life, known and unknown. Thank you. Just let yourself sink into sensation, opening to a presence that sees without comment, without comment without thinking but with kindness and loving acceptance. As boundless as the sky. Thank you. So Notice how it feels to be completely acceptable, alive, changing, subject to storms and darkness and also joy. Everything acceptable. Thank you. And notice that the stillness is not static. It's not an absence, but something alive, nourishing, touching us inside. Thank you. Notice how it feels to let yourself be completely vulnerable under the gaze of an attention that's completely accepting. Thank you. Notice how alive you are under the words. Thanks for watching. There is something deep inside us that knows we are on the earth and under the stars. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you. That concludes this week's practice. If you'd like to support the Rubin and this meditation series,

Starting point is 00:33:15 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.

Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 04/25/2022

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