Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 07/12/2021

Episode Date: July 15, 2021

Theme: Compassion Artwork: Stories of the Previous Lives of the Buddha (Jataka); Eastern Tibet; late 17th–18th century; pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Art; C2004.20.1 (HAR65341); [http://therubin.org/32b] ; 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 14:52. 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. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Mindfulness Meditation Online with the Rubin Museum of Art. I'm Dawn Eshelman. It's so nice to be back here with you. I was away for a couple weeks and thank you so much to Tarini for hosting while I was away. For those of you who are new, we are a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City, and we are so glad to have you all joining us from lots of folks from New York City and Westchester and the tri-state area. I see Philadelphia as well. Great to have you here, and here we go. This is our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online.

Here we go. This is our weekly program where we combine art and meditation online. And of course, as always, I want to invite you to come to the museum itself. We are in Chelsea, New York City, and we are open. Come check out our amazing exhibition, Awaken, a Tibetan Buddhist journey toward enlightenment, which explores the steps in the journey of self-knowledge and transformation from chaos to awakening and everything in between. And inspired from the exhibition, we'll take a look at a work of art from our collection together in just a moment here. Then we'll hear a brief talk from our teacher and we'll have a short sit together, just about 15 to 20 minutes, which will be guided by our teacher today. It's the fabulous

Tracy Cochran. So let's take a look at the theme for our month. We're talking about compassion and the artwork that we've selected that evokes or embodies this idea. And we've taken this theme, compassion, from inspiration from the exhibition that I mentioned, Awaken. As many of you who are familiar with the art and culture and religion, Tibetan Buddhism, compassion and wisdom, it's sort of counterpart the other side of that coin, are known to be essential concepts to embody for a practitioner who is really working towards enlightenment. So the art object that we're looking at today shows a figure who is certainly known for his immense compassion. This is Shakyamuni

Buddha and this is a thangka from eastern Tibet late 17th 18th centuries and this tanka depicts not just the Shakyamuni Buddha but as you can see it's very detailed around the central figure that you see a lot of vignettes and in fact what we're looking at here is a tanka entitled stories of the previous lives of the Buddha J Jataka Tales. Tales of Buddha Shakyamuni's past lives are depicted here, and these are some of the most well-known narratives in Himalayan culture, often presented in a series of paintings.

Each painting depicts a part of the story here. And here, of course, we're seeing just a few. There are known to be 34 traditional tales, which was later expanded to 108. And you'll even hear upwards of 500 tales. Here in the painting, we see them as small vignettes that are arranged around this central image of the Buddha. Also, you'll see this amongst some landscape elements here. And the many, many stories include stories of the Buddha's previous life as Bodhisattva, a king, a merchant, and many different animals. The talkative tortoise,

the monkey king, the ass in the lion's skin. And this one here, I'll zoom in on this detail, and this one here, I'll zoom in on this detail, is about an elephant of some kind. I won't give it away because our teacher Tracy Cochran is going to tell us all about it, but you'll see some interesting activity going on here near the bottom. And together these tales illustrate the perfection of virtues on the path to enlightenment, of course, including compassion. And we're about to hear a tale of memorable compassion. Let's bring on our teacher today, Tracy Cochran. Tracy Cochran has been a student and a teacher of meditation and spiritual practice for decades. She is the founder of the Hudson River Sangha, which is now virtual and open

to all. The link for her weekly meditations can be found on her website, tracycochran.org. And in addition to teaching at the Rubin Museum of Art, Tracy Cochran has taught mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at the New York Insight Meditation Center, as well as in schools, corporations, and other venues nationally and internationally. She's also a writer and the editorial director of Parabola, a beautiful, acclaimed quarterly magazine. It seeks to bring a timeless bit of spiritual wisdom to the burning questions of the day. Her writings, podcasts, and other details can be found on her website and on parabola.org. Tracy, welcome. Thank you. I'm delighted to be back. And I can't see everyone who's here, but I can feel you.

I can feel your presence. And as John said, we have a chance today to hear a story about one of the Buddha's previous lives. And I'm going to tell it to you very briefly. And as you listen, I invite you to remember that you too have lived quite a few lives. And I don't even mean before you were born. But within this life, I invite you to relax, settle in, and open to all the different kinds of beings you have been. Student and child in relationships. So anyway, in this life of the Buddha, he was an elephant. He was an elephant, and not just an ordinary elephant, as wonderful as all elephants are.

He was a monastic, a meditating elephant, he became aware of a group of human beings who were lost and parched and starving. And his great huge heart of compassion opened to these poor creatures. of compassion opened to these poor creatures. And so he called out to them and projecting his ways to head in a certain direction where they would find water. They were so thirsty. And then he decided to follow them towards the water. And knowing that they were also starving, he came to a cliff, looked down upon them, and jumped.

Sacrificing his life and his body so that they could eat. so that they could eat. And now I can imagine how you're feeling hearing that story. It's something like I felt. And what came to mind was an expression that I heard from a great Tibetan Buddhist teacher of mine, Gallagher Rinpoche, and it originated with Trang Pa Rinpoche, and the expression is idiot compassion.

Idiot compassion. Idiot compassion is when you do something that hurts you, hoping to help another. You can give away your attention, your time, your energy. And in the case of this elephant, his very life. elephant his very life. The contemporary teacher calls idiot compassion enabling. When we enable someone or ourselves, sometimes we hurt

ourselves and call it compassion. So what is another way of understanding what this extraordinary elephant did? Something that doesn't hurt. Something that heals. And I reflected on this, and I looked up some facts about elephants, and they're such wonderful creatures. And one thing I learned about elephants is that they can feel

approaching thunderstorms with their feet. Not just that, they can feel through these very sensitive receptors the vibration of other elephants even miles away. And they can even feel the direction of those elephants from the spaces between vibrations. And that extraordinary capacity is something like the capacity of our own heart, our own presence. our own presence. There's something in us that's deeper than our stories,

our projections, our worries. So another way of understanding the story, which was never meant to be taken literally, is that we can let go, we can release selves that we have created just to survive. As we sit together, we can begin to soften and open to those other people we have been, who may not have been so skillful, so kind, who might have enabled, who might have given till it hurts. And just by sitting together under the gaze of a quiet attention that's kind, that's curious, we can begin to see that awakening the heart of compassion means presenting ourselves to be seen,

to be seen as we are. And I wanted, before we sit, I wanted to share a wonderful joke. I think it's wonderful. And it's old, but useful. And in this version, a human being comes to the edge of a cliff. He's being chased by a tiger. And he's at the edge of a cliff, just like the Buddha elephant was at the edge of a cliff. He's being chased by a tiger, and he's at the edge of a cliff, just like the Buddha elephant was at the edge of a cliff looking down. And he's so frightened, he feels so

trapped in the situation that he calls out for God himself, help me, help me. Have you ever felt that way, just so trapped in a situation? I don't know what to do. And in this story, the voice of the divine says, just let go. Just jump. It's going to be okay. And the man says, is there somebody else up there I could speak to? We cling to our fear. We cling to past stories, past selves that we've been. Because we're afraid to just let go and be with the unknown. And the gentle invitation of this teaching

is to trust that when we let go of our stories about who we are or who we used to be, we can be met by a compassionate awareness that holds us without clinging and that this seeing begins to heal, healing us into the present. So let's sit together. And we let ourselves be comfortable.

And notice how that feels, to sit up straight and yet be relaxed. And if you feel comfortable, let your eyes close. Noticing how it feels to be sitting with other people from disparate places. And just notice how it feels to be you. Don't think about it. Just feel. and begin to notice that there is an attention present that can take in whatever is here

with kindness and curiosity. And notice that this attention can begin to feel more present. Thank you. Let everything happen, thinking, sensing, picturing. And when you see that you're distracted, gently bring the attention back to the body, back to sensation, back to the present moment. Thank you. Just rest in presence. Remembering how alive you are. Sensing, feeling more than thinking. Present. Thank you. And notice that when you are lost in thinking, you can always come home to the present moment and an attention that

sees you without judging, without commenting, with kindness. Thank you. Thank you. Notice how it feels to be seen by an attention that accepts everything with compassion. No thought, no feeling, rejected, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just rest in compassionate awareness. Thank you. Thank you. Let everything that arises be met by curiosity and kindness. Thank you. Thank you. Notice how it feels to be completely acceptable. Going away and coming back. Thinking and being present. Everything acceptable. Everything cared about. Thank you. noticing how it feels to let go and just flow Thank you. Under the gaze of compassion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your practice, for your presence. 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.