Mindfulness Meditation With Sharon Salzberg 07/26/2021

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.

Good afternoon,

Everybody.

Welcome,

Welcome,

And thank you for joining us for mindfulness meditation online with the Rubin Museum of Art.

I'm Dawn Eshelman.

We are a museum of Himalayan art and ideas in New York City and just delighted to have so many of you joining us from places near and far and joining us so that we can practice together in this program where we combine art and meditation online.

So thanks for joining us.

Today we are looking at a work of art that is from our collection and we're inspired by the exhibition,

Awaken.

I'll bring up that artwork again and tell you about it in just a moment.

We'll hear a brief talk from our teacher,

Who today is the fabulous Sharon Salzberg,

And we've got her now for a two-parter on our themes.

We were with her last week and we'll be here with her this week as well.

And she will talk with us a little bit about our theme of compassion and also kind of harkening back to wisdom,

Wisdom and compassion,

How they work together and why they're a pair through the lens of Tibetan Buddhism.

And we'll sit together,

15 to 20 minutes.

So let's take a look at our art together.

Last month we spoke about wisdom.

This month we're talking about compassion.

And since this is our last session together for this month and we're kind of completing our two months on those themes together,

We're going to bring both into the conversation.

These are two ritual objects,

Probably the most important ritual objects in Tibetan Buddhism and specifically Tantra,

And they represent wisdom and compassion.

These two here,

The vajra laying down on its side,

The thunderbolt and the bell,

With a kind of vajra-like stem there.

These are from Mongolia,

Late 19th century.

They're made of silver and other metal,

A five metal compound.

Combined together,

They symbolize enlightenment as they embody the union of all dualities,

Form and emptiness,

Female and male,

Compassion and wisdom.

And the vajra itself represents compassion,

Also method,

Action,

Skillful means.

It's really an active symbol here,

Indestructible truth.

And it is in the shape of a kind of thunderbolt.

And this is a weapon carried by the Vedic god Indra.

And as a thunderbolt weapon,

It destroys enemies and really is maintaining this symbol of being indestructible and all penetrating.

The bell represents wisdom and emptiness.

So if you think about the sound of the bell,

It might call to mind the empty nature of all things as the sound kind of travels through.

And this is also connecting us to this idea that nothing can exist independently,

That everything is connected.

And that by being aware of the empty and interconnected nature of all things,

This frees us from the attachment and aversion.

So to talk to us a little bit more about the connection between these ideas and what they have to do with our practice,

I'm delighted to bring on Sharon Salzberg,

Who is the co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre,

Massachusetts.

She's guided meditation retreats worldwide since 1974.

And her latest book is Real Change,

Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World.

And of course,

You know her as the author of many,

Many wonderful books,

Real Happiness,

So many more.

You can find out about her many activities and offerings at SharonSalzberg.

Com.

Sharon,

Welcome back.

It's so nice to be here with you.

Thank you so much.

I am so delighted to be with you all.

And I'm really happy that the Rubin Museum is going to continue having online offerings in different ways because I keep hearing from people,

Some of you in the chat,

Or I get emails from people saying they can't actually travel that easily.

And so we get to have a really expanded community one way or another.

And of course,

For those of you who can get to the physical location,

It's very exciting,

The prospect of going back.

So compassion,

We spoke about compassion as being both a means and an end,

Which makes it very interesting that it's a quality that is enlivening and enlightening all in and of itself.

We need to develop it in order to become free.

And one of the great characteristics of a free mind,

Not bound to old habit and old fears and a sense of rigid separation and things like that is compassion itself.

And so as I've said here,

I think several times,

I've often thought the idea of a path is almost too linear because we think of it as like,

Maybe it's got a little curve in it,

But it's basically a straight line.

And you don't think about going back to the beginning.

So I keep trying to imagine what the shape is actually.

My most recent sort of speculation was like a double helix,

Like if we still believe that about DNA and genes,

I'm not even sure,

But that there's some woven quality to wisdom and compassion that brings us together,

It unites us at different times.

That idea I think is very important,

Whatever visualization we come to because compassion is like our friends,

It's accompanying us all along this way because first of all,

That quality of self-compassion when we begin to see various traits or habits within ourselves,

It's sometimes not very pleasant,

And we can just go down that path of judging ourselves and demeaning ourselves,

Which is not useful and it's not productive.

We need to be able to see clearly and honestly and yet with kindness.

And the kindness we may extend to others is also,

It may seem small in some way,

But because our path is seamless,

The inner work and the outer work,

Everything that we do toward that end brings us to greater wisdom.

One of the things that sometimes people use as a kind of North Star,

A sort of narrative thread that feels like all of their life is uniting,

It's integrated,

The inner work and the outer work,

Is just a simple question.

When you're about to say something to somebody,

Send an email,

Take an action,

Then it might be just the question of,

Is there a kinder way of doing this or where would kindness suggest I go with this?

And I want to emphasize that qualities like compassion and kindness don't stifle us.

It's not like,

And this is people's fear often,

It's not like you can only say yes or you can only give in and that is where kindness demands we go.

It's not like that at all.

It's about motivation and intention,

Why we are doing things,

Not the particular decision we make about what to do,

But it's why we are acting.

When we talk about loving kindness as equality,

It's talked about,

For example,

As the antidote to fear.

So if we have largely been motivated by fear in what we do,

What we say,

What we hold back from doing or saying,

And we deepen loving kindness,

We will largely be coming from a place of a sense of connection.

And what we do and what we say in a particular moment will be very contextual.

It will depend on the moment and the relationship and the surroundings and past experience and all kinds of things.

And it's about discernment,

Which is another form of wisdom.

It's where wisdom reenters the picture and we will make mistakes for sure and hopefully learn lessons from those mistakes and from feedback.

But do we say yes or do we say no?

Do we let this go on or do we protest?

I don't know.

It really depends,

But why we would do something hopefully would involve respect for all of life,

All beings,

Some sense of wishing well that if somebody seems immersed in suffering and causing suffering,

That part of our response is based on the feeling,

I wish you could be more free,

See more clearly,

See more of the consequences of your actions.

It's a little bit like I often think of,

Maybe we all know people like that who will describe themselves as quite lonely.

And then you see,

You witness how they actually speak to others and you think,

Well,

No wonder,

You know,

Actions are consequential and there's a poignancy to that.

We could certainly wish like,

Would that I were in charge of the universe,

I would not design it so that you clung to that habit because look what the result is.

Wisdom also tells us I'm not in charge of the universe,

But that's the heart speaking,

You know,

That we wish people to come out of suffering and the very traits that have them cause suffering.

What we do in response might be a lot of different things.

So that's why there's a lot of freedom there.

So one of the great places that wisdom and compassion meet is around the realization of interconnection that however alone we might feel,

However cut off we might feel,

The truth is that all of life is intertwined and we live in an interdependent universe.

My friend,

Bob Thurman,

Who was a professor of Buddhist studies at Columbia University,

So they recently just retired,

Has this example that I've loved and used like a billion times,

I think much more often than Bob.

It's very New York,

So I like it.

So he said,

Imagine you're on a subway and these Martians come and they zap the subway cars that those of us who are in there are going to be together forever.

So what happens if somebody's hungry,

Feed them.

Somebody's freaking out.

You try to calm them down,

Not because you necessarily like them or approve of them,

But because you're going to be together forever.

Well,

Guess what?

There's a lot of truth to that.

We share this planet.

We share this life.

Actions are consequential.

Our lives are intertwined.

And there's a growing,

Developing sense of we that is real.

That's what reality is.

It doesn't make us weak and it doesn't truly make us give in because we make lots of decisions about how best to act in a particular moment,

In a particular context to our best discernment,

Or I call it our best guess.

That happens all the time.

We need that kind of assessment and analysis and doing the best we can and having wisdom and realizing our limits and things like that.

But in terms of the heartfelt motivation,

It's based on that really bone deep knowledge that our lives are intertwined,

That we really live in an interconnected universe.

So you can also send me your idea of the shape,

Whatever you think that path actually looks like.

I know it's a fractal,

Which would be interesting to somehow also design,

And we're going to sit together now.

So if you'd like to just sit comfortably,

You can close your eyes or not.

Just be at ease.

You can start by listening to sound.

I will note that bring you some sounds of New York City.

And unless you are responsible for responding to the sound,

See if it can just wash through you.

Bring your attention to the feeling of your body sitting,

Whatever sensations you discover,

And see if you can feel the earth supporting you.

Feel space touching you.

And then feel the sensations of your breath,

Just the normal in and out breath,

Wherever it's most distinct for you,

The nostrils,

The chest or the abdomen.

You can find that place,

Bring your attention there and just rest.

See if you can feel one breath.

And if you like,

You can use a quiet mental notation like in,

Out,

Or rising,

Falling to help support the awareness of the breath,

But very quiet.

So your attention is going to feeling the breath,

One breath at a time.

And as images or sounds or sensations or emotions arise,

If they're not very strong,

If you can stay connected to the feeling of the breath,

Just let them flow on by your breathing.

Just one breath.

If something is very strong and it pulls you away,

You get lost in the feeling of the breath.

If you're lost in thought or spun out in a fantasy,

Or you fall asleep,

Truly don't worry about it.

See if you can practice letting go gently and with a lot of compassion towards yourself,

Bring your attention back.

Remember that compassion for yourself is like the secret ingredient because our attention will wander,

We'll get lost,

We'll get sleepy.

All kinds of things will happen,

But we can always begin again.

We can always begin again.

We can always begin again.

And when you feel ready,

You can open your eyes or lift your gaze and we'll end the meditation.

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.