Mindfulness Meditation Online At The Rubin Museum With Lama Aria Drolma 03/01/2021

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.

Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art and to our weekly practice together,

Mindfulness meditation.

I hope you all are very well.

We are here on the very first of March.

We made it through February.

And this is a time of coming full circle.

We have,

I think many of us are experiencing a lot of kind of retrospection about the year that since we have been dealing with the coronavirus and various stages of lockdown or isolation and just have had our world upended in some ways small and in some ways very large.

And we're talking this month about a theme that is present in one of our upcoming exhibitions.

The exhibition is called Awaken,

A Tibetan Buddhist journey towards enlightenment.

And it explores the steps in the journey of self-knowledge and transformation from chaos to awakening and everything in between.

So over the next couple of months,

We're going to explore some broader themes from that exhibition,

Including this month,

That starting place,

Facing Chaos,

Which as we think about where we were a year ago,

I wonder what kind of experiences of chaos we might have had either individually or collectively in our communities and even in our global community.

So it's so great to have everybody joining us here.

We're going to take a look at a work of art together as we always do from our collection.

And we'll hear a brief talk from our teacher this week.

We have back with us for the first time in the new year,

Lama Arya Drouma.

And we'll hear from her about this idea of facing chaos.

And then we'll sit together 15 or 20 minutes for our meditation guided by her.

So let's take a look again at the work of art we were looking at as we were waiting this morning,

This afternoon.

Here we are with this beautiful thangka.

This is one of my favorites.

It's just so vibrant and has such rich,

Beautiful colors.

This is green Tara as a protectress of the eight great fears from the eight great fears.

This is from Tibet or Mongolia in 19th century.

This is a thangka,

Pigments on cloth.

And green Tara,

See if we can just take a little bit of a closer look at her at the central figure here.

You can see that she is a beautiful rich green color and she's bejeweled really beautifully with necklaces and bracelets and a crown for beautiful hoop earrings.

And behind her head is this kind of halo that looks like the colors of the sun actually.

And she is surrounded by lotus blossoms and we know the significance of the lotus and its symbolism of awakening,

Of enlightenment,

Of transforming that muck,

That chaos into clarity and awareness.

And she's seated on a lotus throne with one foot out as we know her to always or often be represented in this posture because it means that she's ready to jump out and help at any time.

And in fact,

Practitioners call upon her when they need help if they are dedicated to her.

And you see that she's surrounded by many figures.

Just at the bottom you can see there are several other green Taras.

Green Tara is really known as this protectress.

She protects us from the eight great fears and she is also here seated and Tara is described as emanating as a tear from the form of Avalokitesvara who had eleven heads and a thousand hands.

And in the uncertainty of everyday chaos,

You know,

When we're as a practitioner,

It might be feeling a real sense of panic or concern.

We can turn to her and she will protect us from all of our negative thoughts,

Feelings and fears.

So here with us today is the wonderful Lama Arya Dralma who is an ordained Buddhist teacher and trained in the Karmakayu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism with over a decade of monastic study and meditation training.

She was born in India and in her early years practiced Hindu traditions.

Later she studied under a renowned Tibetan Buddhist master and practiced Tibetan Buddhism.

She is the graduate of a traditional three years,

Three months Tibetan Buddhist retreat,

Which is an advanced koi sta meditation training program at Phap Phong Thub Tung Choling Monastery in upstate New York.

She teaches worldwide,

Leading all kinds of retreats and she conveys the ancient Buddhist principles of making them relevant in everyday life,

Just like we're doing here today,

Helping us to cultivate loving kindness and compassion.

Lama Arya Dralma,

It's so nice to have you back.

Welcome.

Hello and welcome everyone.

Thank you all for joining in today.

I want to thank Dawn for the lovely introduction and want to thank the whole team for organizing this webinar.

I'm absolutely delighted to be here with you all.

So today I was very tempted to have a cat filter on this webinar and I hope everyone here has probably seen the video that went viral with a cat filter on.

And this for who,

For anyone who haven't seen the video,

It's there's a serious court session going on between the judge and the lawyer and the lawyer suddenly you know,

Turns into a cat and the cat is so cute and you know,

The cat's eyes are going like this and like this and whatever the lawyer is saying,

The voice is mimicked by the cat.

And it was so hilarious.

It's fantastic.

If you haven't seen the video,

I highly recommend going and seeing the video for a good laugh.

And so the lawyer in the midst of this court case,

He's telling the judge,

But judge,

I'm not a cat.

And the judge goes to the lawyer,

He says,

I see you're not a cat.

You just have a filter on and you've got to remove the filter.

And the lawyers,

I don't know how to,

And I'm having my assistant help me remove this filter.

And meanwhile,

He's speaking like a cat and the cat is like looking from one eye to the other this way and that way.

And the judge is reassuring the lawyer,

That's okay.

You just need to take the filter off.

And so I wish I had that filter today because it was so hilarious.

And I,

Every time I look at it,

I laugh my guts off.

And you know,

These days it's,

It would be so fantastic to have a good laugh every,

Every day.

And so today we have this beautiful artwork,

Mother Tara.

And who is Green Tara?

Who's Mother Tara?

She's the most popular goddess of Buddhism,

The goddess of universal compassion,

Loving kindness,

And one who leads us on the path to enlightenment.

So here in this artwork,

Green Tara is a protector from the eight fears.

What are these eight fears?

The eight fears here refers to a mental fears,

Pride,

Anger,

Attachment,

Greed,

Doubt,

Ignorance,

And false view.

In particular,

These fears refer to someone who's on the spiritual path and,

But it can also refer to what we're going through right now,

Our current situation,

The mental chaos we are going through right now.

And the fear of getting the disease,

The fear of our financial situation,

And all the fears we are having during this time.

The main one,

What's happening is because of the hopelessness,

Because of the uncertainty,

We are having a lot of anger and we can't get through,

Go through these changes and we want the normal,

You know,

Everything to be normal soon.

And when we have these fears and when we recognize we have these fears,

We can call on Mother Tara to liberate us from these fears.

And the more devotion you have,

Mother Tara is there.

Why is she,

Why depend on Mother Tara?

Because she has promised that anyone who seeks her help,

She'll be there.

You can think of her as Mother Mary,

Quonion,

Tara,

Your own mother.

You know,

When you call on her,

She is so fast,

She's so swift.

And you'll always see one of,

In all the paintings of Tara,

One of her feet is always out,

Which represents that she's there to help us immediately.

And today the theme is living in chaos and the artwork is Mother Tara.

So talking about living in chaos,

We are living in mental chaos.

You know,

We have all these fears going on,

Hopelessness,

The uncertainty,

A financial situation for some,

And there are so many fears.

And when we call on Mother Tara,

She liberates us from these fears.

And when you call on Mother Tara,

It also means that we are invoking our own innate wisdom nature,

Our own compassion,

Our own loving kindness,

Which can liberate us from all these fears.

So as we train in meditation and cultivate loving kindness and compassion,

These qualities will protect us from our mental emotions.

Also when we face anger through our meditation practice,

We can remain internally calm,

Collected rather than just react.

We can deal with any situations with much more dignity,

Much more calmer.

And that's why the practice of formal meditation is so important.

In addition to meditating,

We can also,

If one wishes,

We can also visualize Tara in front of us and visualize her whole light,

The green light radiating from her that flows into us,

Filling us with our body and mind and purifying and eliminating all these disturbing emotions.

Then Tara's peaceful green light fills the whole universe and you can reverse it to all the whole universe,

Whoever you think is sick,

Your friends,

And that light fills them and they're fully healed.

This is one of the practice that we do in our monastery.

We practice mother Tara's every day in all the monasteries,

In all the Buddhist monasteries,

We practice mother Tara's chanting every day to invoke her blessings,

To remove all our obstacles.

And another important point to consider is we don't have to be overwhelmed by chaos,

Even when we're in the midst of it.

We have a choice.

The choice is we don't have to get the chaos within.

And the second most important thing is to understand that this whole earth,

This world is chaotic.

And take this planet for instance,

You know,

It spins on its axis and it revolves around the sun in space.

And when we go outside into the open sky,

And most often we think we are on the right side,

We are upside down.

We can be at the bottom of the earth and it's just that gravity that holds us.

And while this earth is spinning on its axis,

There are a million asteroids floating in space and any one of them can collide with earth anytime.

And so earth is never a safe place.

It needed all this chaos to,

You know,

To have this magnificent earth around us.

So changes are happening all the time.

And this chaotic world is,

It is a chaotic world and how we react to our mental fears and our mental emotions,

Painful suffering ones,

That's the most key.

So you know,

Take the eagles for instance,

When there is a storm coming,

All the little birds go and seek shelter,

Whereas the eagles,

They fly to avoid the storm,

They fly above the clouds.

And so we have a choice in the storm of our life,

Maybe so like the eagles to avoid all these mental emotions,

Mental disturbing emotions.

And I have a story of this wonderful lady called Brittany,

How she transformed her own fears and soared like an eagle.

She came to the monastery about two years ago to meditate.

And that day there was a holiday.

So there was only two of them,

Brittany and her friend Grace.

And so Brittany wanted to learn meditation.

And as we sat to meditate,

I wanted to learn,

You know,

I wanted to understand them better.

I'm always curious where they're coming from.

And so I started talking and Brittany was someone who was taking part in pageants.

She wanted to win pageants because the goal was to connect with sustainable food.

And she wanted to advocate that sustainable food,

Food that's medicine and through pageancy,

She could have that platform to talk about her ultimate goal that everybody has food on their plate and food is medicine.

And that was her goal.

And so Brittany now,

You know,

She was pretty and she was petite and in a pageant,

There are hundreds of beautiful girls.

And I would tell Brittany,

I told Brittany that day,

Brittany,

You're going to win.

You've got to do three things.

When you walk into the door,

I want to see you just smiling,

Captivate everybody with your smile.

And two,

You can manifest whatever you want.

And third,

Develop a positive energy.

How do you have a positive energy?

You can recall gratitude nets.

When you wake up in the morning to create a positive energy,

Have five thoughts in your mind that brings you towards the thoughts of gratitude.

And then you start the day with this positive energy and then recall your goals every time.

And the mind is very powerful.

It can manifest whatever you want.

And the third is having a goal that's for the greater good.

And so Brittany,

You know,

In three months time,

She had a pageant and she went into the pageant and she called me and she said,

Lama Droma,

I didn't win,

But I made so many friends.

And that was wonderful for that moment.

But three weeks from now,

In three weeks ago,

She texted me and she said,

Lama Droma,

I won the beauty contest.

And it was called Blue Gold Beauty Contest,

Which then she can take part in the New Jersey pageant.

And I said,

How did you do it,

Brittany?

And she said,

I started doing the gratitude prayers for three months consistently.

I did the manifesting exercise.

And then I also thought of the goal.

You know,

Her goal is to have sustainable food,

Which will,

Which is for the greater good.

So there were these three components.

And so we can all do that.

We can all soar like these eagles.

And guess what?

During this time,

There's no pageants,

You know,

Outside.

And this all happened in Zoom.

And she had a talent and it was,

She played the flute.

And so everybody,

Whatever your goals are,

You know,

If you have gratitude,

You have a positive attitude,

You can manifest them even at this time.

And it was all on Zoom.

And the whole Earth,

The whole universe,

Sorry,

Conspired for her wish to come true.

And so that's Brittany's story.

I really,

I was so absolutely delighted to hear Brittany's story.

Now going back to all the fears,

All the chaos that's happening around us,

The most important question to ask is,

Where is this chaos coming from?

Is it coming from outside?

Is it coming from your parents?

Is it coming from your partners?

Is it coming from everywhere outside the world around you?

It's coming from our minds.

All this chaos is coming from our minds.

That's why even amidst all this chaos,

You can see one person thriving,

Doing all the wonderful things,

And another person being,

Having anxiety and depression and so on.

So it's the mind that brings all these fears and chaos.

And the best way to calm our mind is through meditation.

So today,

Let's start up my meditation practice.

And when you start the meditation practice,

There are two key points.

One is your posture.

And two is anchoring your mind's attention on an object or breath or sense of smell or tactile sensations.

So today,

We're going to put our anchor on a mind.

So please sit upright.

And to start the meditation,

Let's take three breaths,

Deep breaths.

And when we exhale,

Exhale out all your concerns,

All your worries,

Everything out.

So the first breath,

Breathe deeply.

Breathe out all your worries,

All your concerns.

And let's take the second breath.

Breathe in all,

Breathe in deeply.

And as you exhale,

Breathe out all your worries,

All your concerns,

All your anger out.

And the third breath,

Breathe in deeply,

Inhale.

And as you exhale,

Let go of all your worries.

Let's breathe out all your concerns,

All your anxiety.

And at this moment,

You can visualize Mother Tara filling you with green,

Blissful light of power,

Strength,

Courage to face anything you want.

And then again from your heart,

Let that green light fill the universe because always your goal should be for the greater good.

And bless the whole universe,

All the sentient beings,

And see them blissfully happy.

And now let's do the formal meditation.

As I mentioned,

There are two key points.

First is your posture.

You sit upright.

And this meditation practice comes from 2,

500 years or longer.

So it's passed on from master to student,

Master to student.

So sit upright,

Your spine should be straight,

But comfortable.

Inhale and exhale.

Now breathe normally.

And as you exhale,

Let your breath come out from the nostrils and fill the entire space in front of you.

Just relax in this present moment of awareness.

What does it mean to rest in that present moment?

I think if your mind is somewhere else,

Bring it to the present moment.

Let's sit for a while.

Feeling each breath as it goes in.

And as it comes out,

Putting all your attention on your breath.

Again,

Inhale deeply,

Watch your breath,

Pay attention to your breath.

Go all the way to your abdomen.

And there's a slight gap as you exhale out.

And exhale out.

And as your breath comes out of your nostrils,

It fills the entire space in front of you.

And just rest in that present moment of awareness.

Every time you start thinking,

You watch your mind and you say,

Thinking,

There are trains of thoughts going through.

At this moment,

Just say,

Thinking,

Acknowledge the thoughts and drop it.

Let it go.

Don't follow.

And engage in it and return back your attention on your breath.

As you breathe in,

There's a slight pause and then you breathe out.

And as you exhale,

Breathe out and let that breath fill the entire space in front of you.

Just rest in that present moment of awareness.

And also now bring a smile to your face.

You know,

Just a smile on your face makes your whole body happy.

You have a choice,

You can be grumpy or you can be,

You can smile.

Again,

Bring your mind's attention to your breath.

Inhale and exhale.

And when you inhale,

There's a slight pause before you exhale.

And as you exhale,

Let your breath come out and just rest in that present moment of awareness.

And suddenly you'll notice some thoughts in your mind.

And when you notice the thoughts,

Acknowledge it,

Say thinking,

And then drop it.

Don't engage in it and bring your mind's attention back to your breath.

Breathing all the way in and then breathing out.

And as you breathe out,

Let your breath fill the entire space in front of you.

Just think it's the breath is filling the entire space and rest in that present moment of awareness.

As you sit in this calm mind,

You can invoke Tara's blessings.

You can visualize the picture that you saw before,

The artwork,

And visualize all her blessings in a form of green light,

Filling your whole body.

And then from your heart center,

Let that light go through the universe and fill the whole sentient beings.

And they're all blissful,

Always for the greater good.

The more you do for the greater good,

The more benefit.

So as you can let go of your thoughts in formal practice,

This I call it a formal meditation practice,

You can do so in day to day life.

As you're going through your day to day life,

Something happens and you have an emotion of fear.

And you say,

Oh,

Fear,

Just label it as thinking,

Everything is thoughts.

And say,

I'm going to drop it.

I have a choice.

I'm going to transform this fear into happiness.

And think of something happy.

And it's a practice,

We continuously do it.

You may not get it the first time.

And then when your fears and troubles are unbearable,

This is where you can call Mother Tara,

Angels,

Mother Mary,

Quonion,

They're all here to help us.

Like Mother Tara,

She's here to,

By default,

Because she's enlightened.

There's nothing but how to help sentient beings.

And so when I am in troubles,

I demand of her,

I call her like my mother,

I say,

Mother,

I need you right now.

I need your help.

And I'm always blessed with the helps.

Let's again,

Meditate for a few more minutes.

Sit up straight.

Check your posture.

Let your spine be straight.

And if that's uncomfortable,

Relax a little bit into it.

And let's breathe in.

And there's a pause and breathe out.

It's all nice,

Round.

There's no stopping and things that way.

It's a nice rhythm.

And as you exhale out,

Breathe out.

And as your air goes out from your nostrils,

Just imagine it fills the space in front of you,

Which makes the mind spacious.

Let's rest in that present moment of awareness.

Let's breathe in.

We have two more minutes to continue our meditation.

And as you're meditating,

I'll give you some tips.

In the formal practice,

It's when you watch your thoughts.

You can say,

Thinking,

Label it as thinking and just drop it.

Let it go.

Don't make a storyline.

Bring your attention back to your breathing.

In day to day life,

As you're bombarded with so many emotions,

You can say,

Thinking and drop it.

And then you can do one more,

One minute of meditation,

Just inhaling,

Bring your attention and exhaling.

And sometimes if there's a lot going on,

You need to step it up.

Like the story I mentioned about the eagles soaring about the storm.

You can do the same,

Getting all your will and saying,

I'm not going to let this chaos,

All these mental afflictions come into me.

I'm going to become strong and soar like those eagles.

Just like I mentioned,

Even during these times,

The beautiful Brittany,

She went on to win the pageant because she can have this platform to advocate sustainable food.

So can you.

Always think what you can do for the greater good.

All your wishes will come true even more quickly.

The universe has everything to help all your wishes come true.

You just have to be positive.

Know you can.

And then inspire and empower yourself.

Thank you so much.

Thank you,

Lama Ariadroma.

Thanks so much.

That concludes this week's practice.

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Thank you for listening.