Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 08/31/2020

Episode Date: September 4, 2020

Theme: Change Artwork: Stories of the Previous Lives of the Buddha (Jataka);[http://therubin.org/2-l] 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 11:59. 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. 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. Please enjoy your practice. We are delighted to have as a teacher for today, Tracy Cochran, who we will introduce in just a moment. So this month's theme and the art, if you have been tuning in to the Rubens and our social media accounts over the past month or so,

you will know all about our participatory project called The Lotus Effect, which invites folks to fold a lotus out of paper in honor of someone or something that has helped you during a difficult time. So this month in mindfulness meditation, we are thinking about the symbolism of the lotus as represented in some of the beautiful Hindu and Buddhist art in our collection. The Hindu god and goddesses and Buddhist deities often sitting or standing on lotus throne. And we are talking about one of the ideas the lotus represent, its awakening. So let us look at a beautiful art that we have chosen for today. So lotuses grow in muddy murky water, rises to the surface and unfold. They bloom untainted by

the muck and they remind us that the moment of beauty can emerge from the toughest conditions. So in Tibetan Buddhism, the lotus symbolizes purity, awakening, enlightenment. And here is a beautiful thangka painting, mineral pigment on cotton. And the central figure you see here is the Shakyamuni Buddha, who's often addressed as historical Buddha. So what you're looking at is something called Jataka tale. Well, Jataka in Tibetan, in Pali and Sanskrit, ancient language means birth. And in Tibetan, it's called Kherim, you know, like the stories, in fact, is the stories of the previous life of Buddha. You will hear more from my colleague after the meditation session. So I'd

like to invite our great teacher for today, Tracy Cochran, and I'm going to give you a quick introduction. Tracy Cochran is Editor editorial director of Parabola, a quarterly magazine that for 40 years has drawn on the world's cultural and wisdom traditions to explore the questions that all humans share. She has been a student of meditation and spiritual practices for many decades and teaches mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at New York Insight Meditation Center and throughout the greater New York area. In addition to Parabola, her writing has appeared in the New York Times,

Psychology Today, O Magazine, and many other publications and anthologies. For more information, please visit jCocklin.org. So Tracy Cochran, thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you. Thank you, Tashi. I'm so glad to sit with you again. And I can't see many of you, but I can feel the presence of my friends. And I'm delighted that I have an opportunity to add my two cents to this beautiful image of the lotus, which blooms from muddy, still water. So I invite you, even as you begin to relax, to sit, to feel what it's like to sink, to just let yourself sink into the sensation of how you feel today without striving or aspiring for something better than you find. than you find.

And it's wonderful to consider that this practice of awakening might not be reaching up, but something that we find when we let ourselves settle. Settle and relax and just think. That's one of the first movements of meditation. You can do it as you listen to me. Just let your attention come to your sensation.

I can't see faces, but I'm guessing that I would see knots of agreement that there's quite a bit to be distressed about right now. Or to feel some overwhelm about. Or some fear. and the interesting truth of this practice is that as much as we yearn to escape as much as we yearn for freedom for calmness, for joy it may not be found where we think I saw a wonderful cartoon in the New Yorker, which is a constant source of

inspiration for me, the cartoons, where someone was kneeling by their bed praying, and the caption said, okay, maybe you won't grant my prayers, but could you please at least give me some good feedback? We yearn for some help, for some support. And what's interesting to consider, thinking of the lotus again, is what would it be like to just be daring just for a moment to let yourself feel even your difficult feelings without judgment you might be feeling sorrow or anger or bitterness. And we're so conditioned to think this is toxic. I must not feel this. But instead, to let yourself feel it in the body with an attitude of interest.

What's under this? What's here. And we can do this when we sit together today just by not thinking, but just bringing in attention that doesn't judge to our experience. experience. And we begin to discover something that the great Albert Camus summed up by saying, in the midst of winter, I found within me an invincible summer. In the midst of hatred, summer. In the midst of hatred, I found an invincible love. In the midst of sorrow, tears, a smile. In the midst of chaos, calm. And you might be thinking, as I did for a long time, well, that's wonderful for him, but it seems like a special state. But I invite you to see that this moment of summer, of light, of warmth, of joy, of calm, can be as simple and as momentary

as noticing that you have an intention that can see and that can feel whatever presents itself with kind eyes, without judging. And just a word about these stories, Jataka tales in this tradition, there are all these stories about the Buddha's life before he became enlightened and they include animal lives and lives that are literally 400,000 gazillion ago, a long time. And we begin to see that he had relationships with his mother and mothers and all kinds of people that lasted that long.

And one way to understand this is that this is how it can feel to be in the grip of a difficult or painful pattern or emotion. You can feel her at you. If I had your faces, I would see you nodding. Have you ever had the thought, I thought I was through this? I thought I had gone past this. And yet, here up comes this resentment or this bitterness or this sorrow again. Again. again, again.

And in the tales, we will see this kind of enactment of a pattern. And then something shifts, often with an act of kindness, an act of simple kindness, an act of simple going on, and we discover that something shifts. But let's try it together. Instead of my just talking at you, Let's experience it. So we take a comfortable seat and that's what's comfortable for you with the back straight and the neck resting easily on the head. So so you're upright but relaxed

and let the eyes close and just notice how it feels to be present today not yesterday not tomorrow but right now. And notice that this attention that doesn't judge can begin to soften the body.

Just a little. Let everything be exactly as it is. The thinking will kick in. Sensation, picturing, listening, let everything be just like this. And notice that you can bring the attention to the sensation of sitting here breathing. Don't think about it and don't change the breath. Just sense the rhythm of breathing.

And notice that the air comes in and goes out. You don't have to do it. And that some of it stays, nourishing and replenishing the body. And whenever you get lost, whenever you get thinking, you can notice this without judgment and gently come home, come home to the sensation of being in a body. Thank you. And notice that as you relax, as you come home, a presence appears inside and also outside. An attention that sees that receives. Thank you. Thank you. And notice that this stillness isn't a dead thing, it's not an absence but something alive, A presence that connects and nourishes us, that sees without judging. Thank you. Thank you. Sati, the ancient Pali word for mindfulness means to remember. The life in the body. Thank you. And notice that when you come home, back to sensation, you also open, open to a greater life, to a presence that's more Let's see. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And notice that when we come home, back to sensation, when responsiveness to life, like little jewels on the bottom of a stream bed. Thank you. Thank you. When you get lost, just come home and discover that you're completely welcome, that you belong to life. You're not alone. Thank you. Thank you. Letting yourself sink into sensation.

And finding a presence. An attention that isn't separate from love. Thank you.. As we come to close, discovering that relaxing is also blooming, opening, opening to a presence that doesn't judge. A light of attention that's kind. so Thank you. Thank you for your practice. I'm so happy to be with you and to see notes from friends who can't usually come to the actual Rubin Museum. So thank you. Thank you for your presence. Thank you. Thank you so much for that beautiful session, Tracy.

And thank you all for joining us. That concludes this week's practice. If you would like to support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a member of the Rubin. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day.