Mindfulness Meditation At The Rubin Museum With Kate Johnson

The theme for this meditation is Discovering. It is inspired by an artwork from the Rubin’s collection and it will include an opening talk before a beautifully calming 20-min meditation session. In this practice, we release tension and invite a deep clarity of mind.

Transcript

Welcome to the Mindfulness Meditation podcast.

I'm your host,

Dawn Eshelman.

Every Wednesday at the Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea,

We present a meditation session led by a prominent meditation teacher from the New York area.

This podcast is a recording of our weekly practice.

If you would like to join us in person,

Please visit our website at rubinmuseum.

Org slash meditation.

We are proud to be partnering with Sharon Salzberg and teachers from the Interdependence Project.

The series is supported in part by the Hemera Foundation.

In the description for each episode,

You will find information about the theme for that week's session,

Including an image of a related artwork chosen from the Rubin Museum's permanent collection.

And now,

Please enjoy your practice.

Good afternoon,

Everybody.

Welcome to the Rubin Museum of Art.

My name is Dawn Eshelman.

I'm head of programs here.

It's great to see you.

And we are talking about this act of discovering this month and all the discoveries that we make about ourselves and the world around us as part of our meditation practice.

And this theme is inspired by the exhibition up on the sixth floor,

Which is called The Second Buddha Master of Time,

All about the great Padmasambhava.

But today,

We are looking at a very special teacher.

And last time,

I mentioned that,

You know,

Of course,

Padmasambhava is very important in bringing Buddhism to Tibet,

But he had many,

Many helpers along the way,

Including this teacher here.

And this is Lama Lingpa Girmayadurjay.

He is holding his hand in the mudra of the teaching gesture,

And he is sitting on quite an elaborate throne there with beautiful robes,

Surrounded by lotus blossoms.

And in front of him,

He has a table upon which are some daily ritual objects,

A bowl,

Vajra,

And some other items and offerings.

And then the other hand,

His left hand,

Which is held below,

Holds a little box.

And this is to symbolize treasure teachings.

So Padmasambhava,

As many of you know,

Was able to plant teachings in the future for people to discover when they were most needed,

These teachings.

And a couple of the teachers that we are looking at this month are,

In fact,

Some of those treasure revealers.

And that is the case here as well.

And what's interesting is that this teacher received visions during his meditation that instructed him where he might find these teachings.

I think it's interesting.

He didn't receive the teachings that way.

He received the information about how to take action to find those teachings.

And another interesting aspect about this particular teacher is that he was known for his ability to weave kind of existing knowledge and traditions with new knowledge and traditions and to help his students do that as well.

So not just sticking with the old or throwing away that information and going with everything new,

But a mixture of the two.

So if you think about that in terms of a metaphor for your own practice,

I think it's a really interesting one to consider.

What do you want to maintain or retain in terms of wisdom and traditions?

And what do you want to actually accept and learn from as you go?

So we are so happy to have Kate Johnson back with us for kind of a part two on this theme.

Kate teaches mindful yoga in New York City public schools and Buddhist meditation at the Interdependence Project.

She holds a BFA in dance from the Alvin Ailey School at Fordham University and a master's in performance studies from NYU.

She has trained at Spirit Rock Meditation Center,

Interdependence Project,

And she's writing a book about waking up to power and oppression as a spiritual practice.

So please welcome her back,

Kate Johnson.

Hello.

I'm really feeling very blessed and honored to have a time for meditation inspired by this beautiful painting.

And I've always really loved all religious iconography,

But been especially drawn to Tibetan Buddhist iconography,

Actually.

So I love learning about the different symbols and what they mean and all of the incredible information that's conveyed visually.

It's just,

It's almost overwhelming.

And the part that I'd love to focus on today is this little piece that Dawn pointed out,

The box that distinguishes Langma Lingpa as a revealer of these treasure teachings.

The Tibetan word,

From what I understand,

Is terma.

And I love this teaching that there is a compassionate being at some point in history who knew that there were some teachings we would need,

But that we,

Humanity either didn't need them yet or wasn't quite ready for them yet.

And so they're,

You know,

Perhaps hidden in the earth somewhere,

In rocks and crystals or rivers.

And then it's also,

As I understand,

Been used to describe the ways in which teachings can even be hidden in our own minds that can be revealed in partnership with a skilled teacher.

For today,

I've been really thinking about it as a metaphor for what happens when we're in our own silent sitting meditation practice,

When for a few moments,

Perhaps,

We're being our own teacher.

And as a metaphor for the arising of insight that,

You know,

We can be sitting there in the same mind and heart and body,

You know,

Relatively speaking,

That we've had all our life and then suddenly a truth arises from seemingly nowhere to be recognized and discovered.

And so I've been playing with this metaphor of the meditation practice as a treasure hunt.

And it's kind of like a super chill treasure hunt,

Though.

It's not like the kind where we,

You know,

Don't need special equipment,

Don't have to go fast.

There's no,

Like,

It's not like the amazing race where there's other teams that are going to get there first if we don't,

You know.

But this quality of really adventure and discovery and not knowing what's going to arise,

Not knowing what jewels are actually hidden,

But right below the surface of our experience,

That with the right amount of time and loving attention are just waiting to pop up above the surface and be known.

So it's not the kind of thing that we can demand happen on demand,

But it is something that we can create conditions for so that,

You know,

The revealing of these inner treasures is more likely.

And I think it also has great implication for the rest of our life,

Especially in creative practice,

You know,

Kind of,

As Don mentioned,

I'm writing,

I've been writing and writing and writing,

And the way in which sometimes writing or another creative practice feels like walking around in a dark room and I can't quite make out what's going on and there's words,

But they're not really working together and then suddenly something happens and I understand what I'm doing.

And so to be able to kind of be meditating in such a way that we're poised for that kind of discovery is something that I'll encourage here.

We'll do a practice that is,

I think,

Probably familiar for many of you who have been practicing meditation for a shorter or longer time.

I will be sitting,

Paying attention to the feeling of the breath coming and going as a way to gather and unify the attention and help root us where we are right now.

So it's kind of an investment in this moment.

And then from time to time,

I'll just invite you to notice,

You know,

What is the treasure that's being revealed right now.

And sometimes there might be a real clear answer to that.

It might be like,

You know,

A hammer hit on the head,

Of course,

You know.

Many times it's more subtle.

It's like the learning or the insight,

It's almost there,

But it's not quite ripe.

But it can be a skillful activity to just drop in the question,

You know,

What is it that's being known right now?

And is it actually a treasure?

So does that sound okay,

Like the practice?

Okay.

We'll try it out and then we'll have time for questions after.

So please feel free to just store them in your mind if you,

If something comes up and you want to talk about it later.

I'm more than happy to do that.

So letting your feet,

If they can,

Reach the floor and just,

Is that funny?

I used to teach kids,

So you know,

Chairs are different,

People are different heights.

So feet on the floor,

Or even if you can put a bag underneath or something,

If possible,

It's nice to have a sense of the feet touching something.

And then letting your body settle into your chair.

With the sense that,

Oh,

I can relax now in this moment.

We are relatively safe here.

No one's going to,

Just kind of assuring the body and the mind that this is a relatively safe space where we can practice.

And if it feels good to close the eyes,

You can do that or keeping them softly open.

Just letting the mind touch on the other elements of the body's posture,

The dignity and the length of the spine,

The openness in the heart so that the lungs have as much space as possible and the relaxing the belly,

Which can hold so much tension throughout the day.

And inviting,

If possible,

The shoulders to soften and the face to soften.

And we'll just take the attitude that whatever's going on in the mind or heart or body,

This is a great time for meditation and that we really can't do this wrong.

And seeing if you can locate in the many dimensions of your experience,

Mind,

Heart,

Body,

Past,

Future.

And then somewhere in there,

The breath that's happening right now.

So in this practice,

We know the breath by feeling it.

And we'll just do this quietly for a few minutes.

Letting the breath come and go as a way to gather our mindfulness.

All right.

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And of course from time to time the mind will become disconnected from the breath.

And so then you just reconnect.

Simple as that.

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Just remembering that it doesn't matter how many times we find ourselves disconnected,

We just reconnect with the breath when we can.

And that reconnecting is the activity of mindfulness.

You can do it a hundred times.

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And then in this moment of feeling the breath,

Just dropping in the inquiry,

You know,

What is the treasure of this moment?

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Reviews

Thank you 🙏🌺🌸🦋

Lovely. Thank you.

Very neat. Loved the art connection. The treasure revealed to me was that I need to visit Spirit Rock. Namaste.

Very nice. Thank you and Namaste

I enjoy the idea of teachings in the future waiting for me and noting what bubbles up. Thank you.