Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 06/14/2021

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

Theme: Wisdom Artwork: White Tara with Long Life Deities; Tibet; 19th century; pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; gift of the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation; [http://therubin.org/328] ; Teacher: Tracy Cochran 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 11:25. 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. 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 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 to the Mindfulness Med meditation practice online with the Rubin Museum of Art and I'm Dawn Eshelman. Great to be here with you on what is a little bit of a drizzly day here in the New York City area. Feels like a good day to meditate. We are a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City. If you are new to us and delighted to be here with you and have you join us for our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online.

And meanwhile, I would love to, as I always do, invite you to the museum. It is open and our staff on the ground is so thoughtful and caring and taking such good care of the visitors who come through. So if that's an option for you, of course, we'd love to see you. And check out our exhibition, Awaken, a Tibetan Buddhist journey towards enlightenment, which is all about that journey from self-knowledge and transformation to awakening. And inspired by that exhibition, we will take a look today at a work of art, as we always do. We hear a brief talk from our teacher, and then we'll have a short sit together, 15 to 20 minutes, guided by our teacher, who today is the fabulous Tracy Cochran. We last week launched our new podcast called Awaken, which really features these personal

stories of people who have experienced a shift in their own perception of life. And tomorrow, Tuesday, we launch episode three with Tara Brach. So hope you can check it out. You can go to rubenmuseum.org. And on the homepage, there is a big image you can click on to learn about. There are many different ways to listen. And you can even press play from our website directly. So let's take a look at the art that we have selected. And this is Sherab Chama. This is the loving mother of wisdom. This tanka was painted in Tibet in the 19th century.

This is on view at the Rubin right now. And the reason that we selected this artwork is because this is a really beautiful and interesting depiction of this theme that we're talking about all month long, which is wisdom. Wisdom, along with compassion, are these two elements that through the eyes of Tibetan Buddhism are really the pathway to enlightenment. So we're taking a deeper look at this concept of wisdom this month. Sherab Chama is a deity that actually has roots in the Bon religion, which was practiced in Tibet before Buddhism arrived. And Chama is available to everyone for comfort, guidance,

healing, and she is thought to have the power to dispel all obstacles such as fear, sickness, sadness. And she has, like many figures in Tibetan Buddhism, she has a peaceful form, which we're seeing here, and she also has a wrathful form. I like to think that wisdom, we're seeing here, and she also has a wrathful form. I like to think that wisdom, you know, especially the wisdom of a mother figure, can come in wrathful form sometimes in a way that's very appropriate. Here we're seeing the very peaceful, compassionate form, which is also so necessary and valuable. This is a very complicated tanka. There are many figures. I'll speak really about the central figure, and then we can get into what else is going on in the tanka at the end of our program.

But the right hand here holds a vase to her heart, and this contains the essence of potential hopes, dreams, accomplishments. And the left has a mirror in her left hand. And this is kind of in her upraised hand. And this represents the purity of the Chama heart as reflected in this perfect understanding of this idea of karma and the suffering of all beings. The primary role of this loving mother figure of wisdom is that compassionate element and embodying the nature of wisdom through compassion. So let's bring on our teacher today, the fabulous Tracy Cochran. She has been a student and teacher of meditation and spiritual practice for several decades, and she's the founder of the Hudson River Sangha, which is now virtual and open to everybody Mondays and Wednesdays.

You can find the link for her meditations at TracyCochran.org. And in addition to teaching there and here at the Rubin Museum, Tracy's taught meditation and mindful writing at the New York Insight Meditation Center, schools, corporations, and other venues all over the world. She's a writer, and she's the editorial director of the beautiful publication Parabola, which is an acclaimed quarterly magazine that seeks to bring timeless spiritual wisdom to the burning questions of the day. So you can find out all about her and her writing at parabola.org, as well as tracycochran.org. Welcome back, Tracy. So nice to see you. It's nice to see you. And I'm delighted to be here. And I can't see all of you, but I can feel

your presence. I'm glad we're here together. And I'm really delighted to talk about wisdom, which is the theme of the month. And especially because I can now technically consider myself an elder. And as many of us know, we should listen to our elders, not because they know what's right, but because they have so much experience doing things wrong and getting things wrong. And I can certainly attest to that. I haven't made the same mistake twice. I've made some of the mistakes dozens of times. And the interesting thing that I've discovered

is that it's in the midst of a wrong turn, seemingly wrong turn, that I discover what the right turn might be, what the right turn might be, what the right quality might be. And I want to suggest that even in the realm of practice, of meditation, we all tend to try too hard. tend to try too hard. First of all, we come here under the assumption that meditation will lead us to a pleasant state.

And this isn't always so. I mean, first of all, it produces a lot of striving. I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker that just came out that has two people in a hammock. And if any of you have been in a hammock, you can relate to the caption where the male figure in the hammock is saying, if you keep yourself completely still and don't make any movement, this will be very relaxing. Because if you make the slightest movement, you can start the hammock swinging and even tumble out of the hammock.

It can be very, very stressful to be in a hammock, to try to relax, to try to achieve peace. So what do we do if we come here and we're in a state that seems anything but peaceful? We may be agitated, restless, or tired, or stressed, that all-purpose word. And the great American humorist, Orly Parker, said, curiosity is a cure for boredom. And we could add restlessness or stress or fearfulness, curiosity. And she added, there's no cure for curiosity, which is wonderful because it suggests we're planting a seed for which there will be no cure. of being curious about our state, allowing things to be the way they are. With kindness and interest, you might say, like a good mother, and maybe the mother none of us had,

infinitely patient, infinitely interested, None of us had. Infinitely patient. Infinitely interested. Wisdom, in the English, old English root, means to see. Wisdom means to see and to know. To know that we're seeing. Wisdom is seeing what we don't see at first in our striving, in our thinking, in our eagerness to achieve. Wisdom appears when things go wrong. In quotes, wrong. And I love this image because it's a beautiful mother who isn't just mild and cookie-baking and dispensing hugs. She's also fierce.

And it reminds me of a time long ago, being an elder, this is long ago, when I had a little baby, and I lived in the East Village of Manhattan on the Lower East Side, and it was a different time in the Lower East Side and the East Village, and things were very exciting. The whole neighborhood was full of pop-up art galleries and punks and bands, and there was a whiff of danger, and all of this seemed incredibly exciting and incredibly creative until I had a baby. And once I did, when she was with me, I discovered that I had within me a capacity

to be a fierce warrior, a protector. warrior, a protector. And it reminds me of that gesture of the Buddha touching the earth. I'm walking through the East Village confronting Mara, Mara, the demon who represents our fears, who represents our fears, who represents darkness, who represents danger, who represents everything that might unseat us from the center of ourselves, from being present. And in the face of Mara, the Buddha reached down and touched the earth, asking the earth to bear witness to him. And in terms of wisdom, it's such a beautiful gesture because it is a gesture that reminds us that we're more than our thinking.

Walking through the East Village with my baby in my arms, I was more than thinking. I was also strong. I was also loving. I was also connected to life and to the world, to life and to the world, to the basic goodness of life and myself. And I invite you to remember those times that may have been painful for you or troubling. Times when you may have had to leave a relationship or a job. Times when you've been sick or frightened.

And notice that within that experience, as painful as it was, you also could see or sense what it was that really mattered to you. And it might have taken the form of almost like a prayer, if I get out of this in one piece, I will only care about being alive and good and helpful.

You discover in the midst of doing sometimes what you have to do, what you don't want to do, that you're not alone, that life is with you, kindness is with you, values of wisdom and compassion are accompanying you like a good mother. So let's sit. Let's sit together. We take a comfortable seat and let our back be as straight as we can and let the head rest easily on our neck.

And just notice how it feels to be present. Don't think about it. Just allow yourself to feel how it is to be here in the simplest and most direct way. and notice that this attention can begin to soften you let it go to places of tension. Places where you might not feel anything. And very gently and without comment or any striving, let this attention spread. Let it sink from head and face with all its visual tensions.

and face with all its mental tensions. Down the neck, into the torso. And down and down through the arms and the legs, all the way down to your feet. Let yourself be filled with an attention that accepts you just like this. Thank you. And notice that when you begin to think to the sensation of sitting here in a Notice how it feels to come to presence. That it can feel as if we're being received by an awareness that looks and senses us with kindness and complete acceptance. Thank you. Rest. Rest in stillness. Notice that meditation is remembering the body and sensation and feelings. Remember they're here. Opening to receive. Thank you. Notice how it feels to remember that we're more than our thinking. We're alive and open to life. Responsive. mental life responsive. and receiving impressions and air and support from outside and inside. Thank you. Giving up striving, allowing everything to be just like this, we become attentive to To the present moment. Thank you. Notice that seeing with acceptance grounds us, softens us, opens us to what's present. Thank you. When you get lost in thinking or dreaming or picturing, just gently come back again to presence. Noticing how it feels to be completely accepted. Thank you. Granted in the wisdom of seeing without judgment, with openness and curiosity. Thank you. Seeing everything that comes up with kindness, openness, a willingness to see what comes. Thank you. Notice that you belong to life, that you're not separate from it. Thank you. You are not alone. own. Thank you. 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, 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.