Mindfulness Meditation Podcast - Mindfulness Meditation with Tracy Cochran 11/21/2024

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art presents a weekly meditation for beginners and skilled meditators alike. Each episode is inspired by a different work of art from the Museum’s collection and is led by a prominent meditation teacher.The episode begins with an opening talk followed by a 20-minute meditation. In this episode, the guided meditation begins at 14:38. Teacher: Tracy Cochran Theme: GratitudeArtwork: Shadakshari Lokeshvara; western Tibet; 15th century; pigments on cloth; Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art; gift of John C. Rezk; C2010.11Learn more about the Rubin’s work around the world at rubinmuseum.org. 

Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation Podcast presented by the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, a global museum dedicated to bringing greater awareness and understanding of Himalayan art to people around the world. I'm your host, Tashi Chodron. Every Thursday, we offer a meditation session at New York Inside Meditation Center that draws inspiration from an artwork from the Rubens Collection and is led by a prominent meditation teacher. This podcast is a recording of our weekly in-person practice. The description of each episode includes information about the theme for that week's session and an image of the related artwork. Our Mindfulness Meditation Podcast is presented in partnership with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the New York Inside Meditation Center, the Interdependence Project and Parabola Magazine and supported by the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American

Buddhism. And now, please enjoy your practice. Good afternoon, everyone, and Tashi Delek. Wow, so wonderful to see so many of you coming on this very rainy day. Thank you. And welcome. Welcome to the Rubin Museum's Mindfulness Meditation here at the New York Inside Meditation Center. I'm Tashi Chodron, Himalayan Programs and Communities Ambassador, and I'm delighted to be your host. The Rubin is a global hub for Himalayan art, and it's so wonderful to see so many of you join us for this weekly session where we combine art and meditation. Inspired by our collection, we will first take a look at work of art. We will hear a brief talk from our teacher, Tracy Cochran. And Tracy is, of course, teacher here at the New York Insight as well.

And we will have a short sit, 15 to 20 minutes, for the meditation guided by her. Let's take a look at today's theme and artwork. The theme this month is gratitude. The artwork for today's session is handpicked by our teacher. It's this beautiful Thangka painting of Sadak Shari Lokeshwara. In Tibetan, it is Chenrik Zik, and its origin, Western Tibet, dated 15th century, mineral pigments on cloth. This is about 19 and a half into 17 into 7 and a half inches. So it's a much smaller compared to other thangkas that we are familiar with. And this is a beautiful thangka painting, the scroll painting.

The connection to the theme of gratitude, the Lokeshwara reminds us that being in a state of gratitude awakens a sense of compassion and love that can extend to all beings. Now, this beautiful Thangka painting is a portrait of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. In Tibetan, Chandrakshik, Avalokiteshvara is known to be the patron deity of Tibet. For us Tibetan, His Holiness Dalai Lama is known to be the emanation of Avalokiteshvara as well. As you see here, the Avalokiteshvara here appears in four arms, as you can see, four arms, two folded with the reverence gesture, and the two right holding ritual objects. Avalokiteshvara also appears in six arms, the 1,000 arms, some of you may be familiar, and with 11 heads in peaceful and one fierce, wrathful face. And then Avalokiteshvara also appears in male and female form. So in Chinese, the Avalokiteshvara is known as Kuan Yin,

appears in female form. So here, Avalokiteshvara is a relatively simple form. His elongated eyes and the beautiful eyebrows that you can see with the very arch-like small defined chin and narrow waist are characteristics features of Kashmiri style painting in Tibet. and this distinctive clothing pattern, if I may go back, as you see here, in the bottom right, right here, so you see including striped-like clothing, pants, and a white cape. So all these help identify this painting as being from the Western Tibet. So this painting is, again, very small in scale. It was intended as a personal icon. Objects of devotion such as this one can help practitioners to deepen their sense of gratitude. And let's bring on our teacher for

today. Our teacher is Tracy Cochran. Tracy Cochran has been a student and teacher of meditation and spiritual practice for decades. She is the founder of the Hudson River Sangha, which is now virtual and is open to all. The link of her weekly meditation can be found on her website, tracycochran.org. In addition, Tracy has taught mindfulness meditation and mindful writing at the Rubin Museum of Art and the New York Inside Meditation Center, as well as in schools, corporations, and other venues worldwide. Tracy's new book is Presence, the Art of Being at Home in Yourself. We hope to carry it here as well, And we used to have that at the Rubin gift shop, which was one of the best seller. So if you go on our website, you can also find more information.

And Tracy, thank you so much for being here. And please help me in welcoming Tracy Kaufman. I'm so grateful to be here in this space with you. And I'm saying it because I had to practice, because I didn't grow up like Tashi did saying it. But there's something inside us that knows when we hear the story. And we saw a clip of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but he's also been here in New York. And I met him several times. And one time, in the middle of a college chakra, a big ceremony, time of care broke down, and I had to bring my one-year-old daughter into the ceremony.

And I was terrified because she so didn't want to be there. But he was completely welcoming of everything that was happening, everything. Babies crawling around on stage with grape juice. And the quality of the bodhisattva of compassion is that they aren't scared to be with anybody in any state. One-year-old baby, someone in hell. But Pesafa is a saint in Western terms. Someone who has volunteered to stay behind, not to fly up in the sky, but to sink down and keep us company, to be here with us, feeling exactly what we feel until we too are free. until we too are free. And I heard this great quote from a Catholic priest. No saint without a past.

No sinner without a future. No saint without the past. And of course, Bodhisattva of Compassion has had many lives, all kinds of lives, animal lives, even gasp, female lives. Bodhisattva of compassion has been wherever you are. it's of compassion. It's like a good friend that you want to be with when things aren't going well. You don't want to be with someone whose life is sailing along perfectly. You don't. You want the kindness, the welcome, and the acceptance of somebody who has been through stuff. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? And I was thinking gratitude. A lot of people might think, I don't feel particularly grateful right now. Things don't really seem to be going the way I would like them to be going.

way I would like them to be going. And I'm touched always to remember a preface of the magazine I'm connected to. We published a Mohawk prayer of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is next week. And this beautiful prayer goes on and on and on. And it's wretching to read because we took everything from these people.

Everything. everything from these people, everything. And still, and still, they gave thanks for her life, for her being together, and for the love and compassion that still remains. That's what they'd phrase it. It's still here. And so I'm touched to remember in this tradition, everything including us is impermanent.

Everything including us is impermanent. And that also means porous, interconnected. We aren't separate. And when we let ourselves soften a little bit, we remember, we start to remember that inside us, there is the bodhisattva of compassion. There is a force of compassion, of acceptance, acceptance of love and appreciation for whatever is here. And it doesn't mean to deny what's happening or to just give up, But it means, listen, know to have sense

inside you, inside you, inside me. There's a capacity to be with everything. Fury. You might be furious about something. You might not feel good. You might be furious about something. You might not feel good.

You might be confused or conflicted. Notice. There's another force here. Compassionate. Accepting. Capable of noticing and being grateful for what's here, still here. So every sinner, quote, unquote, everybody is in torment. is also on a path to become a saint. It's not in the remote future. It's right here in the sitting. And it's not by rejecting everything that hurts or feels angry.

It's by accepting everything with love, being that good friend to ourselves. So let's sit together, see for ourselves. So let your back be straight, as straight as you can, but notice how it feels to welcome yourself, to be just like this, just like this. Nothing, nothing to be rejected. And let yourself be soft. Press in. And notice there is an attention that is here inside, a kind attention. And just let it feels to be accepted with kindness, patience, Rest. Rest. Rest, just rest in kind attention. Thank you. Notice the presence that's here inside and outside. Kindness. Patience. Compassion. kindness, patience,

compassion, Thank you. When thinking happens, no problem. Picturing, feeling, no problem. Normal, natural. Gently come home to body, to sensation, and notice a presence that receives everything with kindness, spaciousness. Thank you. Just come home, come home to presence, compassion. Come home to presence, compassion. Let everything be welcome. Thank you. Notice how it feels to be very, very compassionate to yourself, to everything that arises.

No rejection. Rejection. Thank you. And notice how it feels to remember to be present and let forgetting also be acceptable, understandable, human. Thank you. Thank you. And notice, feel the force inside you that isn't thought, that's compassion, acceptance, presence. Thank you. Thank you. When you don't know where to go, come home to the body, to sensation, to presence, and just be still. Thank you. Thank you. Notice how it feels to be completely acceptable. Going away, coming back. Everything. Thank you. Just soften and rest in compassion. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for that beautiful session, Tracy. Thank you so much for that beautiful session, Tracy. Thank you. That concludes this week's practice.

To support the Rubin and this meditation series, we invite you to become a friend of the Rubin at rubinmuseum.org slash friends. If you are looking for more inspiring content, please check out our other podcast, Awaken, which uses art to explore the dynamic paths to enlightenment and what it means to wake up. Season 4, hosted by Isabella Rossellini, delves into the Buddhist concept of attachment

and explores how the practice of letting go can transform our experience of the world. Available wherever you listen to podcasts. And to learn more about the Rubin Museum's work around the world, visit rubinmuseum.org. Thank you for listening. Have a mindful day. Wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving.